HOME LIFE IN RUSSIA,

BY

A RUSSIAN NOBLE.

(Nikolai Gogol)

REVISED

BY THE EDITOR OF

REVELATIONS OF SIBERIA.

(Krystin Lach-Szyrma)

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

LONDON:

HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,

SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN,

13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.

1854.

[Table]

[PREFACE.]

In laying before English readers a Work, of which the scene is exclusively laid in Russia, and which, it is confidently anticipated, will be recognised as furnishing a most interesting and graphic account of the manners and customs of a very extraordinary nation, the Editor considers it his duty to devote a few words to an explanation of the circumstances connected with the publication of these volumes.

The Work is written by a Russian nobleman, who offered the MS. in English to the publishers, and the Editor's task has been confined to altering such verbal errors as might be expected, when we bear in mind that the Author has written in a language which is not his own.

The story may be said to be unique. It gives us an insight into the internal circumstances and relations of Russian society, which only a Russian could afford us. The Nosdrieffs are an exceptional class, whose type is peculiar to a half-civilization where a blow is accounted as no disgrace, and "giving the lie" imparts no stigma. And yet men who quietly pocket such insults, we find are tolerated in good society, and, strange to say, are not thought the worse of on that account. The Napoleonic dictum, "grattez le Russe, et vous trouverez Tartare," is in this instance most fully verified. But we will not spoil the reader's enjoyment by any further intimation of the persons, whose acquaintance he will make while perusing the following pages. The author affirms that the story is true, and that the main facts are well known in Russia. There is hardly a class of Russian life and society which is not introduced upon the scene, and the Author displays their foibles with an unsparing hand. Still he must not be regarded as an enemy to his Fatherland: he acts under a salutary impression that the exposé can do no harm, and may possibly effect some good: and if he have such good fortune that his book obtains access into his own country, we feel sure that its truth will be immediately recognized, and its severity pardoned, at least by those not in authority, on account of the Author's strenuous exertions to do his part manfully in ameliorating the condition of his fellow sufferers in Russia.

In conclusion, we may regret that we are not at liberty to mention the author's name—not that the work itself requires any further verification, for its genuineness is avouched by almost every line—but the truth is, that the writer is still anxious to return to his native country, and is perfectly well aware that the avowal of his handiwork and such a display of his satirical powers, will not serve as a special recommendation, except, possibly, as a passport to the innermost regions of the Siberian wilds.

With these preliminary remarks, the Editor begs to offer "Home Life in Russia" to the English reader, as a worthy companion to the "Revelations of Siberia," and as adding one more to our scanty list of books which throw light upon the domestic life of our 'ancient allies' and present foes.

LONDON, 1854.

[HOME LIFE IN RUSSIA.]

[CHAPTER I.]

One fine summer's afternoon a few years ago, a pretty, neat-looking, but small spring-britchka, drove into the court-yard of an inn, in the governmental town of Smolensk. The vehicle was one of that peculiar description to which bachelors, retired colonels, staats-capitains, and landowners, rejoicing in the possession of about a hundred-and-fifty souls, give the preference for travelling purposes; in short, all those who in Russia are called "gentlemen of the middle rank."

The traveller who occupied the high seat in this convenient conveyance, was a man, who at first sight could not have been taken for handsome, yet we should do him injustice were we to affirm the contrary of him, for he was neither too stout nor too thin; it would also have been impossible to add that he was too old, as little as it would have been right to call him youthful. His arrival in the above-named town created no particular sensation, and, indeed, it took place without the occurrence of anything unusual or even extraordinary; two Russian mouzhiks, however, who were standing before the door of a dram-shop on the opposite side of the inn, were apparently making their strictures and observations, but which, were confined to conjectures concerning the britchka, not upon the gentleman occupying the carriage.

"Dost thou see it?" said the one to the other, "there is a wheel for you! what do you think of it, would it break or not, supposing it had to roll as far as Moscow?"

"It might stand the journey," replied the other, musingly, as he scratched himself sedulously behind the ear.

"But supposing it was on its way to Kazan, I think it could not stand the wear and tear of such a distance?" said the first speaker again.

"It will never roll into the ancient Tatar fastness," responded his friend somewhat affirmatively.

Thus ended their learned conversation, the scientific depth of which we will not venture to explore. But previous to the britchka being stopped by its driver before the entrance door of the inn, a young man had happened to pass; he was dressed in a pair of white, very tightly-fitting, and extremely short, twill inexpressibles, buttoned up under a dress-coat of the most fashionable cut, and from under which a snow-white linen shirt-front visibly displayed an elegant bronze pin of common Tula manufacture, representing a weapon in the shape of a pistol. This young gentleman turned round, and also honoured the travelling-carriage of our stranger with a hasty glance, at the same time adjusting his hat upon his head, to guard it against the attack of a sudden gust of wind, and then—turning upon his heel, he too went his way.

When the carriage had entered the court-yard, and stopped before the principal entrance of the inn, the traveller was welcomed by the head-waiter, or saloon-walker, as this class are commonly called in Russian hotels,—so lively, and spin-about a fellow, that it was actually impossible to look him in the face, or, in consequence of his mercurial evolutions, to recognise even the outlines of his features. He now came running out breathlessly with a napkin over his arm. He was all one length, without symmetry or the slightest appearance of proportion, and wore a long demi-cotton jacket, which nearly fitted his back instead of his waist; he shook his head, and made his long hair, which was cut à la mouzhik, fly in all directions, and led the stranger quickly up-stairs through the long range of wooden galleries of the inn, and showed the fatigued traveller into the apartment, which, by the decrees of the hotel authorities, he was to occupy.

The room was much the same as such rooms usually are, because the inn was of a similar character, i.e., such an inn as is to be found in all provincial towns of the vast Russian Empire; where, for the sum of two or three roubles, during the course of twenty-four hours, the weary traveller is accommodated with a comfortable room full of beetles, which, like blackberries, peep out from every corner; another door led into an adjoining bed-room, always barricaded with a chest of drawers, or a washing-stand, and occupied by a peaceable and silent neighbour, whose predominant propensity is a lively and irrepressible curiosity to ascertain all he possibly can about the private and public affairs of the new comer. The exterior of the building was in strict harmony with its interior: it was extremely long, and two stories high; the lower portion was not whitewashed, but was permitted to display its brownish red bricks, that had grown dark with years, and looked gloomy and dirty, not only from the sudden changes of wind and weather, but because they had no doubt been originally of a peculiar dirty tint. The upper story was painted all over with the eternal yellow, a colour so fancied and admired in Russia; on the ground-floor there were several small shops, in which harness, leather, cords, crockery, and cake of all description were displayed to the best possible advantage.

In one of these above-named shops, in the corner one, or rather at the window belonging to it, a dealer in heated mead-water, was standing close to his samovar made of bright copper, and it so happened, that he had a face as red as his samovar, so that at a distance, one might have easily fancied there were two self-boilers standing at the window, had it not been for the feet of one of the samovars being ornamented by a jet-black, long, flowing beard.

Whilst our gentleman traveller was examining the room allotted to him, his luggage and other effects were brought in. First of all, his portmanteau, originally made of white leather, but now looking somewhat old, and testifying to the fact that it had been more than once on the road. This portmanteau was carried in by the coachman Selifan, a man of middle stature, clad in a toulup, and the servant Petruschka, a brisk, handy fellow of about thirty, dressed in an ample, shabby-genteel coat, evidently cast off from the the shoulders of his master. He also was a man of middle size, apparently of a sulky nature at first sight, with very broad lips and a large nose.

After they had deposited the portmanteau, they brought in a small mahogany travelling box, inlaid with ebony and other ornamental woods, a pair of boot-legs, and a cold fowl, carefully wrapped in a piece of brown paper. When all these effects were properly located in their respective places, the coachman Selifan left the room with the intention of looking after his horses, whilst the servant Petruschka began to make his arrangements in a small adjoining antechamber, very dark and much like a dog-kennel, into which he had already succeeded in conveying with him his travelling cloak, together with a peculiar odour of his own which was also common to a large bag of his, containing a variety of articles, forming the indispensable toilet of a travelling servant. In this same dark dog-kennel he fixed against the wall as well as he possibly could, a shaky, three-legged bedstead, and stretched upon it something not unlike a mattress, but as meagre and flat as a pancake, and perhaps not less greasy. This mattress, however, he had obtained not without some difficulty, from the landlord of the inn.

During the time that these servants were thus busily engaged in making themselves and their master comfortable, the latter had himself descended into the reception saloon.

What character these so called reception-rooms bear—many of my readers, who have travelled in Russia, will know perfectly well —everywhere the same walls, painted in oil-colours, darkened by the smoke of stoves and tobacco in the upper parts, and greasy from the backs of visitors and travellers in the more accessible regions below; the walls are principally thus disfigured by the resident tradesmen of the town, who, on a market-day will gather together in friendly groups, to take their usual quantum of tea, and talk over business and things in general. There are the same grimy ceiling and glass-lustres with their numerous prismatic ornaments dangling around them, shaking and ringing whenever the head waiter runs across the room over the worn-out carpet, whilst swinging about his tray fearlessly and in the most acrobatic manner imaginable, though it be covered with cups and saucers like the ocean shore with sea-gulls—the same pictures all around the wall, painted, of course, in oil; in a word all was here similar to what it is elsewhere, the only striking difference worthy of notice was perhaps a painting representing a nymph with such an enormous bosom as undoubtedly my reader has never seen. Similar fancy portraitures of nature's bestowings, however, make their appearance in many historical pictures, which, heaven knows, at what period, from whence and by whom, have been brought to us into Russia, and exposed to our view. Sometimes indeed, we have to thank our aristocracy for them, who as admirers and patrons of the fine arts, commission their travelling couriers to purchase them in Italy and elsewhere, according to their taste and judgment.

Our hero took off his travelling cap and liberated his neck from the close embrace of a woollen rainbow-coloured neckcloth, resembling those which a dutiful wife will knit with her own fair hands for her beloved husband, and present it to him with the necessary instructions how to tie it and untie it; as for bachelors, I really cannot say whose kind hands knit such ties for them, but for my own part, I never had the fortune to wear such neck-wrappers in my life. After having freed himself of his woollen tie, the gentleman ordered his dinner to be brought to him.

Whilst various dishes were being served up to him, such as are customary in Russian hotels, as for example; stchee, or cabbage soup, with small meat pies, especially prepared—and indeed always kept ready for all travellers and for many weeks in advance—calf's head and green peas, sausages and greens, roast fowl, salt cucumbers, and the everlasting sweet flour tarts, continually ready and in store; whilst, as we before said, all these good things were being displayed before him, either cold or warmed up, he amused himself by addressing various questions to the head-waiter, inquiring who the former hotel-keeper was and who the present, what the expenses were, and how large the income was, whether the landlord was a thorough rogue or only partially so, to which the head-waiter would invariably reply: "Oh, yes, Sir, a great scoundrel, Sir!"

Thus, then, as is the case in civilized Europe, there are also in civilized Russia, a great many respectable people, who cannot eat their dinner in an hotel, without speaking to the waiter, and who even cannot forbear passing a joke or two upon him.

However, our traveller did not limit his inquiries to apparently unimportant matters, but he also and with wonderful circumspection and in due rotation inquired of the head-waiter who the Governor of the town was, after the names of the Presiding Magistrate and the Imperial Procurator—in a word, he did not omit any of the higher officers of the crown, but even tried to ascertain with as much precision as possible, if not with complete success all or any information he could elicit as regarded the most important and richest landowners of the vicinity, how many souls or peasants each of them might possess, how far out of town he lived and what his character and disposition were, and how frequently he came from his country-seat to visit the town. He also inquired very minutely about the condition and health of the environs, whether that particular government had been visited by any contagious diseases, such as epidemic and other fatal fevers, the ague, cholera, and similar plagues; and all this was asked with such apparent solicitude, and the replies were listened to with such marked interest as to make it quite obvious that simple curiosity was not the only motive that prompted him to put all these various questions.

In his manner there was something sedate and solid, and he had a habit of blowing his nose very noisily indeed, and though it is impossible to say how he contrived to do so, it must be admitted that the noise was something similar to a blow through a hautbois. This, in itself apparently, quite harmless habit had, nevertheless, the good effect of attracting the more particular attention of the head-waiter, who, each time he heard this singular noise, at once shook his head and made his hair fly in all directions, whilst straightening his frame and bending down his bust in a more respectful inclination, he asked the stranger if he wished for anything else?

After dinner, the gentleman took a cup of coffee and seated himself upon the sofa, and to increase his comfort he put a cushion behind his back; and cushions in Russian hotels, instead of fine and elastic wool are generally filled up with something not unlike bricks and pebbles; upon this the stranger yawned once or twice, and then wished to be shown into his apartment where he lay down and slept soundly for about two hours. After this refreshing siesta he rose, and wrote upon a slip of paper, accordingly to the regulations of the establishment, and the request of the head-waiter: his rank, profession, Christian and family name, for the due information of the police authorities. Upon this paper, the head-waiter whilst hurrying down stairs, spelled with as much agility as he was capable, the following: "Councillor of State, Pavel Ivanovitch Tchichikoff, landowner, travelling for his own amusement and affairs."

[CHAPTER II.]

Whilst the head-waiter was still engaged in decyphering the words written on the slip of paper, Tchichikoff left his room and went into the street, to examine the town, with which he evidently appeared to be pleased; for he, no doubt, found that it in no way yielded precedence to any other governmental or provincial town of the Empire: the yellow colour was strikingly predominant upon all the stone edifices, whilst a more modest dark grey hue was thickly diffused over all the wooden buildings. The houses were of regular and irregular construction, of one, two, and one a-half stories high, with everlasting balconies, of course very pretty according to the good taste of provincial architects. In some places, these houses appeared as if lost in midst of the plain-like large streets and their interminable long wooden garden-enclosures; in other places again, they were huddled together, and here life and commerce were more perceptible.

Some of the sign boards, though many were washed clean by heavy rains and snow-storms, displayed here and there a well painted cake, a pair of Suwarrow boots, or a coat and pair of inexpressibles, with the inscription "tailor, from Paris;" then again a hosier's shop, exhibited hats and gloves, stockings and night-caps, with the superscription: "Arsenieff Philipoff, foreign merchant;" on another house might be seen a very large sign-board with a billiard-table painted upon it, and two players in dress-coats, such as the dramatis personae wear in an after-piece, when they enter as "guests," upon the stage. The players on this sign-board were represented in the act of aiming at a ball with their cues, their arms slightly bent backwards and rather ill-shaped legs, as if they had been in the act of making an unsuccessful attempt at an entrechat. Under this billiard-table was written in large characters: "And here is the establishment."

Here and there a man or woman was hawking wares about the street, or selling them at a stand, such as nuts, apples, soap, and cakes—which bore a striking resemblance to soap; then again a coffee and tea-shop, or eating-house, with a large sign board outside, with an enormous fish on it, in the back of which a gigantic fork was stuck, like an harpoon in a whale. Most frequent of all were the double-headed and swarthy looking Imperial eagles spreading their protecting wings over the entrance of the numerous taverns with the laconic inscription, "dram-shop." The pavement was in a bad condition everywhere. The curiosity of Pavel Ivanovitch Tchichikoff, the Councillor of State, went even so far as to honour with a minute inspection the public garden of the town; he found the trees very scrubby and scantily planted, taking feeble root, leaning for support against three posts in the shape of a triangle, and very neatly painted with green oil-colour.

Although these trees were not much higher than common reeds, yet they were mentioned and described in the newspapers on the occasion of the last illumination of the town in the following exceedingly complimentary style: "Thanks to the munificence and protection of our Governor-General, our town is being rapidly embellished, and has again been endowed with an additional ornament—a public garden—full of shady and broad-leaved trees, spreading their protecting branches against the oppressive heat of the day, and it is very gratifying indeed, to witness how loudly the hearts of the good citizens beat, and their tears of gratitude flow in acknowledgment and gratitude towards our Lord-Lieutenant and Governor."

After asking the policeman on duty the nearest way to the parish-church, the town-hall, and the residence of the Lord-Lieutenant, Tchichikoff went to take a walk near the river, which flowed through the centre of the town; on his road thither he happened to pass a lamp-post, from which he tore off a play-bill, which was flapping loosely; no doubt with the intention of reading it with more leisure, when at home; he looked attentively at a lady of rather elegant appearance who was passing along the wood pavement the other side of the street, and who was followed by a little page in a military livery, carrying a large bundle in his hands; once again he cast a long and general glance around him as if with the intention of familiarizing his memory with the position of place and streets, and then went straight home to his room, slightly assisted by the ever attentive head-waiter, during the process of getting up-stairs.

Having had tea, he sat down before a table and ordered a wax candle, produced the torn off play-bill from his pocket, and bringing it closer to the light, he began to read it, slightly closing his right eye. However, there was nothing remarkable in the play-bill: one of Shakespeare's dramas was to be performed; the part of Hamlet was allotted to a Mr. Matchaloff, and that of Ophelia, to Miss Assenkova, the other dramatis personae were of indifferent reputation, and for that reason less interesting; nevertheless, Tchichikoff read them all, and got even as far down the list as the price of the pit and gallery, and discovered that the bill had been printed in the governmental printing-office of the town.

When he had perused the whole, he turned the bill and examined the other side of it, to see if there was by chance something more to read, but finding nothing, he wiped his eyes and folded the bill carefully together, and then deposited it in his mahogany travelling box, into which he was accustomed to put anything, and everything he could lay hold of. The day, we imagine, was concluded with a plate of cold veal and ham, a bottle of sour Crimea-wine, and in a sound night's rest—all in one breath—as we express ourselves in some of the extensive towns of the broad Russian Empire.

The whole of the following day was devoted to paying visits. Tchichikoff went out to pay his devoirs to all the important officers and employés of the town. With hat in hand, he waited upon the Lord-Lieutenant, who, on closer inspection, proved to bear a great resemblance to Tchichikoff himself, for he was neither too stout nor too thin; but he wore the decoration for merit of St. Anne round his neck, and it was whispered about that he might shortly be honoured with a presidential star; however, he was a good-natured man, and even sometimes found leisure and pleasure to assist his lady in embroidering upon canvass.

Tchichikoff next went to present himself to the Vice-Governor, the Procurator, the Presiding Magistrate, the Commissary of Police, the Public Contractor-General, the Inspectors of the Imperial manufactories—our memory fails us, and we regret it; but in excuse we may state that it is rather difficult to remember the different grades of the all-powerful of this wicked world; it will therefore suffice to say, that our traveller displayed an unusual activity as regarded the visits he paid on that particular day. We will conclude a notice of them, by stating that he even went so far in the marks of his civilities, as not to forget to pay his compliments to the Inspector of the Surgical division and the Town-architect. When he had performed all these obligations, he was still sitting and musing in his britchka, and meditating whether he had not omitted any one; but really, there were no more officers of the crown to whom he could have shown his attentions.

In his conversation with these omnipotent personages, he contrived, very cleverly, too, to say to each of them separately something either laudatory or complimentary. To the Lord-Lieutenant he insinuated the flattering observation, that the entrance into his Lord-Lieutenancy was like that into Paradise, and that the roads were everywhere even and smooth as velvet, and that those governments which appoint so trustworthy managers merit the highest praise. To the Commissary of Police he expressed his admiration of the watchfulness and the civility of the policemen under his orders, and in his conversation with the Vice-Governor and the Presiding Magistrate, who had no higher rank than simply "councillors of state," he made an adroit mistake by addressing them twice as "your excellency," which of course pleased and flattered them amazingly.

The results of his praiseworthy attentions were, that the Lord-Lieutenant immediately honoured him with an invitation for that same day to an evening party en famille, whilst the other officers of the crown invited him, the one to dinner, another to a game of whist, a third asked him, as a favour, to come and take a cup of tea, and so forth.

About himself, our friend Tchichikoff obviously avoided saying much, and if he spoke of himself at all, it was but in very general terms indeed, and with an undeniable modesty; his conversation, in such instances, assumed rather more of a learned phraseology and expression. Thus he would remark, for instance, that he was the most insignificant worm that crept over the surface of this world of trouble and deception, and therefore quite unworthy to be an object of particular notice; that he had seen much, and acquired a great deal of experience during his life; that he had struggled and suffered in the service for the just cause; that he had many enemies, some of them even capable of preying on his very vitals; and that now, exhausted by fruitless contests, he was longing for tranquillity, and in search of a modest corner, where he might pass the remainder of his career in quiet and retirement; and, finally, that in passing through this beautiful town, he considered it to be his bounden duty to testify his respect and admiration to the magistrates of the place by waiting upon them. This was about all that the élite of Smolensk could learn touching the strange face that had arrived within the walls of the town, and which strange face did not fail to show itself that very same evening at the réunion of the Lord-Lieutenant.

The preparations for this evening party occupied our hero considerably above two hours, for he devoted such unusual care and attention to his toilette as, we venture to say, is perhaps seldom witnessed. Having enjoyed a short but sound after-dinner nap, he ordered fresh water to be brought in to him; he then began to wash very carefully both his cheeks, using soap very freely, and putting his tongue against each of them in turn—to tighten the skin, no doubt; then, taking the towel from off the shoulder of the officious head-waiter, he commenced rubbing and drying his full face, beginning from behind his ears, yet he did not do so without sneezing twice, and directly into the face of the clever head-waiter.

Having performed this operation, he took up his position before the looking-glass to adjust his shirt-front, and to abbreviate two hairs which protruded from his nostrils, and soon after he was shining in his glory and a dress coat of light coffee-brown colour with bronze buttons.

Thus tastefully and elegantly attired, he seated himself in his own carriage, and drove off through the interminable and dimly-lighted streets. The house of the Lord-Lieutenant, however, was illuminated as if for a regular ball; all the carriages that arrived had their lights; two gendarmes were maintaining order in the entrance-hall; in the distance were heard the loud yells of coachmen and footmen—in a word, all was as it ought to be. On entering the reception-room and salon, Tchichikoff was obliged to close his eyes for a moment, for the brilliancy of the lamps and lights, and the dresses and toilette of the ladies, were literally bewildering. All was one blaze of light. Black dress-coats were flying about in all directions, separately and in heaps, as flies will do around a sugar-loaf in the middle of a hot day in July, when the grumbling old housekeeper is cutting it into square, sparkling pieces before an open window; little children, if any, will gather around her, and watch with intense interest and curiosity the movements of her bony hand, raising in measured time the active hammer, whilst the airy brigade of flies, carried along by a whispering zephyr, approach her fearlessly as conquerors, and, taking advantage of the rays of the sun, which dazzle and dim her sight, besiege the tempting bits in small and large divisions. As they have been already abundantly nourished by the dainties of a fine summer, and at each flight desert some rich meal for another, they do not descend upon the sugar to feed, but come there with the intention of showing themselves, of parading up and down upon the sweet heaps, of rubbing their fore or hind legs against one another, or of performing the same process with their airy wings, and again stretching them out, and scratching their little heads, then turn round and fly away, only to return again, after joining a new and perhaps more numerous detachment.

Tchichikoff had not yet recovered from similar effects and reflections, when he found himself surrounded and soon after arm-in-arm with the Lord-Lieutenant, who introduced him at once to his lady. But even here our new guest did not lose his countenance; he said something complimentary, suitable to the circumstance, and very à propos for a man of his—the middle age—of a rank neither too exalted nor too insignificant. When the dancers took up their positions for a first set of quadrilles, the non-dancers were obliged to fall back towards the wall. Tchichikoff was among them, and did as they did by putting his arms behind him à la Napoléon, and for about two minutes he appeared to pay the greatest attention to what was passing before him.

Many of the ladies were dressed with good taste, and in the latest fashion, while others again displayed robes and jewels, such as could only be got in the shops of a provincial town. The gentlemen also, here as elsewhere, could be divided into two distinct classes: to the first belonged those who were tall, slender and thin, and who are always found buzzing around the fair sex; some of them even were of the same description as those we are wont to see in the salons at St. Petersburg; they wore their whiskers in the same studied and carefully-brushed manner, or had the oval of their faces carefully and neatly shaved; they were familiar with the same easy manners in presence of ladies, and they also spoke French fluently; they knew how to amuse and make the ladies laugh whether they liked it or not, just exactly as the fashionables do in the imperial capital.

The second class was composed of bulky and stout men, such as our friend Tchichikoff, that is to say, of the middle size, who could neither be called too stout or too slender. This latter description of gentlemen was always anxiously engaged in avoiding too close a proximity with the fair sex, and looking about right and left with the intention of espying, if possible, whether the servants of their host had not already prepared a green cloth table for a game of whist. Their faces were round as a full moon; upon some of them pimples and warts were visible; others again displayed the marks of small-pox; and as for their hair, they did not wear it in curls, brushed à la Titus, or cut à la diable m'emporte, as the French call it; their hair was neatly arranged or smoothly brushed down; and as for their features, they were rather round and strongly marked. Such men as we have described were the right honourable dignitaries of the town of Smolensk.

It is a curious fact that men of such frame know better how to manage their little affairs in this world of trouble and disappointment than those who are tall, slender or thin. Slender men are appointed in Russia—perhaps also elsewhere—as special commissioners, or are generally selected for such an office; they are to be met with, here, there and everywhere, somehow or another. Their existence is rather too easy, airy, and not at all calculated to be depended upon. Stout men, on the contrary, never accept doubtful or ambiguous appointments. They all grasp at something more substantial; and if they take up a position in life, it always proves to be a safe and a profitable one, and though the foundation may sometimes shake under their weight, they themselves are not to be unseated. They hate outward display and refinements; their coats may perhaps not be of the best fit or the latest fashion like those of the slender gentlemen, but in compensation, their money bags are filled with the blessings of providence.

The slender man may, after three or four years of extravagance, not have a single serf to mortgage at the Imperial Bank, whilst the stout man's glance is calm and satisfied, for somehow or another, he has saved sufficient to buy a modest cottage in some snug corner of the town, of course in the name of his wife—this attracts less attention, and is done for greater safety; for, in another snug corner of the same town we find another comfortable house belonging to the same stout man; also, at a later date, he builds a villa in the environs, and finally makes the acquisition of a whole estate with all its appurtenances.

Thus then the stout man, having served God and the Emperor, and gained universal esteem, retires from public service, leaves town for his estate, and becomes a farmer, a landowner, a real Russian gentleman, a regular, what we call in Russia, bread and salt man—he lives and he lives well indeed. But when he has done living, then come again his slender heirs; and in the Russian fashion, they spend in a race all the wealth, goods and chattels of their stout parent.

[CHAPTER III.]

We will not attempt to conceal from our reader that reflections like those which concluded the last chapter preoccupied the mind of our friend Tchichikoff, at the time when he was casting his eyes around the company before him; the consequence was, that after mature consideration, he closed in with the ranks of the stout men, where he met with faces he was already acquainted with—the Procurator with his dark and heavy eyebrows, who was continually winking his left eye, as if he meant to say, "Follow me into the other room, my friend, and there will I tell you something." However, he was a serious and sober-minded man; next was the Commissary of Police, a middle-sized man, but sharp and acute, and with all that a philosopher; the Presiding Magistrate, a very judicious and amiable man, who was met by every one with much affability, and treated like an old acquaintance. Tchichikoff bowed low to all of them in turn, though rather lower than they had done, but not without something pleasing in his peculiar mode of salutation.

In this group of men he also made the acquaintance of Mr. Maniloff, a landowner of agreeable and polite manner, and of Mr. Sobakevitch, also a landed proprietor, who at first sight appeared of rather stiff, if not of clumsy carriage, and who, whilst replying to the civilities of Tchichikoff, accidentally trod upon his toe, saying at the same time, "I beg your pardon." After these introductions, he was presented with a playing card, and invited to join a game of whist, which he accepted as a matter of course, with his usual bow of politeness.

The players took their seats around the green table, which they did not leave until suppertime. All conversation was strictly prohibited, as usually happens when the mind is given up to serious occupations. Although the Postmaster was generally a talkative person, yet, from the instant he felt the cards in his hands, he ceased to be so, and his face assumed the expression of a meditating philosopher. He compressed his upper lip upon the lower one, and kept them in that position nearly during the whole time the game lasted. If he played a court card, he could not help knocking audibly with the knuckles of his hand upon the table, and whispering at the same time, if it was a queen, "off starts the pope's wife:" if it was a king, "here goes the mouzhik from Tambov!" To this the Presiding Magistrate would coolly reply; "And I will have her! And I shall pull his beard."

At the same time, and whilst playing a trump card, or knocking against the table, various expressions were made use of, such as, "Ah! bilá ne bilá! I don't know what to play, so I come out with a diamond;" or simply exclamations of, "Hearts! heartlings! spades! spadelings! club! clublings!" and a variety of other words, epithets and names, with which they had christened in their own immediate circles the various colours of the playing cards.

At the termination of their game, they had as usual in such cases, a few disputes, which they settled in rather a loud voice. Our guest and friend, Mr. Tchichikoff, of course took part in the dispute, but he did so with considerable ability, and so well, that though every one heard him protesting, yet all were obliged to agree that he did so with very good taste indeed. He never said, "you played this or that card," but "I believe you were pleased to play the ace," and "I had the honour of covering your knave, Sir," or something equally civil. And in order to convince his opponents still more upon the subject of their argument, he invariably presented to them his silver snuff-box, on the bottom of which they could perceive tonquin-beans which were placed there on purpose to increase the flavour of his snuff.

The attention of our stranger was particularly attracted by the two landed proprietors, Maniloff and Sobakevitch, of whom we have already had occasion to make mention. He availed himself of the first favourable opportunity to take the Presiding Magistrate and the Postmaster aside, and tried to learn from them all the information they could give him about these two gentlemen. A few questions and answers which passed between them, showed that our hero not only possessed the propensities of an inquisitive disposition, but also cherished a wish for positive information; because he first of all inquired how many serfs each of these landowners possessed, and in what suburbs their estates were situated, and then only bethought himself of asking the Christian names of those in whom he appeared to take such a lively interest.

This mode of taking an interest in persons is rather unusual in Russia, for we always begin our inquiries by asking for the Christian names of father and son first, and then only let our real intentions peep out. However, notwithstanding the omission of this general rule, Tchichikoff succeeded in a very brief time indeed, in completely captivating the good graces of the two gentlemen-farmers. Maniloff, who was yet in the prime of life, with eyes as sweet as sugar, and which he was continually winking when he laughed, was actually charmed with our friend's person and manners. He pressed his hand warmly and long, and begged of him most urgently to do him the honour of visiting him on his estate, which according to him was not more than fifteen wersts from the gates of the town. To this very polite invitation, Tchichikoff replied by a very civil inclination of the head, and a truly affectionate pressure of the hand, adding that he would not only be happy to do so, but that he considered it even to be his sacred duty to do himself that honour.

Sobakevitch also invited our guest, but he did so in a rather laconic manner, simply saying: "And don't forget me;" whilst he attempted a bow, accompanied by a scratch with his left foot; this manoeuvre drew the attention of Tchichikoff to his feet, which were shod in such a pair of gigantic boots, that we really believe it would be impossible to meet with a couple of feet proportioned to their size, especially now-a-days, when even Russians begin to look more at shape and fashion.

On the following day, Tchichikoff went to dine and spend the evening with the Commissary of Police, where at three o'clock in the afternoon they sat down to a game of whist, and never rose till two hours after midnight. Here, however, he had the advantage of making the acquaintance of Mr. Nosdrieff, also an owner of some estates, a man of about thirty years of age, and of a very lively and volatile disposition, who, after three or four words, treated our stranger en frère. With the Commissary of Police, Nosdrieff appeared to be also very familiar and on fraternal terms; when they took their seats for the purpose of playing their long game, however, the Commissary of Police and the Procurator had the habit of very carefully examining his tricks, and followed very attentively every card he played.

Upon the following day, Tchichikoff went to pay a visit, and remained to tea at the chief magistrate's, who received his guests in a dressing gown, which looked somewhat greasy and worn out. Among the company there were also two ladies, whose names our guest did not catch. He also called in the evening upon the Vice-Governor; he dined at the great dinner of the public contractor, and at the modest table of the Procurator, whose dinner must have cost a great deal; and he supped at the Mayor's, whose supper was worth the two dinners. In a word, Tchichikoff had no two hours time to stay at home, so much was he engaged in town, and if he returned to his hotel, it was only for the purpose of taking necessary rest.

In all respects, our traveller appeared to be welcome everywhere, for he knew how to make himself comfortable in all positions; in short, he proved a man of considerable experience and tact, as well as a complete man of the world. It did not matter to him what question or argument was brought forward; he never seemed embarrassed or at a loss how to sustain the subject; if horses and races were on the tapis, he knew how to give his opinion on races in general, and horse-breeding in particular; if dogs were praised, he was not at a loss to say something about the perfections of the canine race; if the proceedings of the Imperial Courts of Inquiry were discussed, he proved that these cases, as well as the general conduct of the Imperial employés, were familiar to him; if the game of billiards was brought forward, even upon the billiard-table he did not give a miss; if benefactors were praised, he also knew how to acknowledge their merits, even with apparent tears in his eyes; if comments upon distilleries and spirits were expressed, he also knew how to find fault with the spirits of wine, &c.; if the indiscretions of custom-house officers and inspectors were complained of, even them he knew how to judge and condemn, just as if he had himself been a custom-house officer or inspector.

But it was remarkable that he knew how to express and clothe his comments and opinions in such a pleasing and unpretending manner that he never compromised his position. His voice was neither too loud, nor did he whisper, he spoke exactly as a man ought to speak; in a word, you might have turned him any way, and still you would have found him a gentleman, and of course all the Imperial employés of the higher ranks in the town of Smolensk were pleased and satisfied with the appearance and manners of the new and distingué personage who had arrived among them.

The Lord-Lieutenant's opinion of Tchichikoff was, that he believed him a man of strictly honourable intentions; the Procurator pronounced him a very practical man; the colonel of the garrison said that he was a learned gentleman; the Presiding Magistrate was convinced that he was a man of deep knowledge and great modesty; the Commissary of Police affirmed that Tchichikoff was very civil and amiable; but his wife proclaimed him to be the most amiable and well-bred man she had seen for some time. And even Sobakevitch, who seldom had a good opinion of any one, nevertheless, after his return home from town late at night, and whilst undressing and preparing to retire, said to his wife, a slender lady of not very prepossessing appearance: "My darling heart, I have spent the evening at his Excellency's the Lord-Lieutenant, I have dined with the Commissary of Police, and have made the acquaintance of Pavel Ivanovitch Tchichikoff, a Councillor of State; an exceedingly amiable gentleman!" whereupon the conjugal couple fell asleep.

Thus our hero had gained golden opinions from all manner of men in the good town of Smolensk, without in any way making known anything which might inform them as to the immediate object of his visit to that town. He was equally reserved as to his antecedents, but we fortunately are well acquainted with them, and for a better comprehension of the following story, we think it will be advisable to let our readers into the secret of Mr. Tchichikoff's birth, parentage, and education.

[CHAPTER IV.]

It is a very dubious circumstance whether the hero we have selected for our story will meet with much favour at the hands of our readers. Ladies he is sure not to please—and this assertion we advance confidentially—because ladies expect a hero to be a perfect creation, and if he present but the slightest mental or corporeal imperfection, then, woe to the author! However carefully he may describe his character, and were he even to draw his portrait brighter than a crystal mirror, his exertions, his talents, will be valueless, his time and labour thrown away.

The very corpulence and middle-age of Tchichikoff are calculated to injure him from the very outset: corpulence is unpardonable in a hero, and many fair ladies will turn away in disgust, and say, "Fie! how ugly, how very uninteresting!" Alas! all this is but too well known to the author, for the more he has looked about him, the more he has found it the case that perfect heroes are the only ones that meet with success in this world.

On glancing at all the productions of foreign genius, he has never met with any but fair and perfect heroes and heroines, and even in "Uncle Tom's Cabin" he was astonished at finding none but youthful, fair, and virtuous sufferers.

These, then, are the characters that have met, and still seem to meet with unbounded success in the reading world, though they have been, in our humble opinion, hunted down as it were with a Russian knout, ever since romance became fashionable. Our task, as a Russian author, is a very difficult one indeed, and especially so at the present moment; and unless we can lay before our reader something unmistakeably original, we ought not to have ventured on it. However, trusting in indulgence, and boldly asserting that the perfect and virtuous heroes are completely used up, we beg to introduce an imposing hero.

Dark and humble is the origin of our friend Tchichikoff. His parents he knew belonged to a lower degree of nobility, but whether of hereditary or acquired rank, he was profoundly ignorant; there was no family resemblance between them; at least, such was the opinion of a near relative of his mother's, a woman who was present at his birth. She exclaimed, as she took the new born babe in her arms, "He has not at all turned out what I expected he would be! He ought at least to have resembled his mother," which would have been even better, but he was born simply as the proverb says, "not like his father nor like his mother, but like a passing stranger."

His early life presented but acid-tasteing incidents and recollections, as if regarded through a pane of glass frozen over and covered with snow; he had no friend, no play companion in his early youth. He greeted the world in a country-house with low windows, which were never opened either in winter or summer; his father was a sickly-looking man, who wore a long kaftan or surtout, felt shoes on his bare feet, kept continually heaving deep sighs, walked up and down his room with evident preoccupation, and used to spit frequently into a spittoon standing in a corner; he also sat often uninterruptedly upon a wooden chair before a table with a pen in his hand and some ink on his fingers, and even upon his lips, his eyes fatigued by eternal copyings.

"Never tell a falsehood, fear God and pray for the Emperor, respect your superiors and cherish your benefactors," were the sentences and exhortations to which our hero had to listen while still a child and incapable of judging their importance; the continual and uniform noise of his father's feet clad in their felt shoes, and dragging across the floor, accompanied by the well-known but harsh voice of his parent, saying, "You are noisy again, you little rogue!" This is the triste picture of his early childhood, of which he had now scarcely preserved a faint recollection.

But in life all changes unexpectedly; on a fine and sunshiny morning in the spring, when snow had disappeared from the fields and the roads, the father took his son and seated himself with him in a modest telega, drawn by a small horse of the race called 'the hawk' by Russian horse dealers; this open equipage was guided by a little hunchbacked coachman, the only representative of his family and the only serf Tchichikoff's father possessed, as he was also the only servant to do all the work in his master's house. This hawk-race horse dragged them along the high road for more than two days and a half; they slept on the road, crossed the brooks and rivers, fed on cold fish pies and roast mutton, and arrived only late on the third day in the small town of Bobruisk, their destination.

Before the eyes of the little boy, glittered in unexpected magnificence the houses, shops, and streets of the little town, and so much was he at first bewildered by what he saw that he involuntarily opened his mouth widely, and kept it so for some time. His ecstacy was, however, interrupted by the quadruped hawk, falling with the telega into a deep hole, which was the entrance into a narrow lane, which led, as they advanced, down a steep declivity and was buried in mud on either side; for a long time the poor hawk-horse kept exerting itself and kicking about on all fours, assisted by both the hunchbacked coachman and the master himself, until at last the strength of all three combined brought the vehicle out of the hole, and before a small modest-looking house, with two scrubby poplars before and a small insignificant garden behind.

This house was inhabited by a relation of Tchichikoff's mother, an old trembling woman much advanced in years, and who, notwithstanding her age, went every morning to market, and on her return from there, used to dry her wet stockings by holding them up and close to the samovar! When she beheld the little boy, she took him on her knees, clapped his rosy cheeks with both her hands, and seemed exceedingly pleased with his childish corpulence. With this original and affectionate woman he was to remain for the future, and go daily to the parish-school of the town of Bobruisk.

After passing the night with them, his father left them the next morning and started at once on his road home again. At their separation no tears flowed from the parental eyes, but he presented his son with half a rouble, a few caresses and what is more valuable still, with the following exhortations:

"Now then my boy, Pavluschka, study and learn, do not be foolish nor become a good-for-nothing boy, but try as much as possible to please and always obey your masters. If you obey your superiors; then, whether you have been successful or not in your studies, if Providence refuses you natural talents, you will still be able to get on in the world and go-ahead, even before all others. Have little or nothing to do with gay companions, they will teach you nothing good; but if you cannot avoid making acquaintances, then he upon friendly terms only with those richer than yourself, for they might be later of use to you by their influence. Do not drink or play foolish tricks by standing treat, but conduct yourself in such a manner that others may treat and compliment you. Above all, be careful and economic and spare and gather up all your pence, for money is the most influential thing in this world. Your friends and gay companions will be the first to betray and desert you in case of need, but the money you have saved will never betray you in whatever circumstances you may find yourself placed. You can do much and succeed in everything in this world provided you have money."

After concluding his instructions and advice, the father parted with his son, took his seat on his telega, and the quadruped-hawk trotted along the high road towards home, and from that time the lowly little boy never saw his fond parent again; but his parting words and advice remained deeply impressed in his innocent soul.

Young Pavluschka went to school, immediately, on the following day. Any particular talent, for any particular science, was not observable in the boy; he distinguished himself more by assiduous application and orderly behaviour: but his want of talent, was counterbalanced by a mind full of practical wisdom. He at once understood and appreciated his peculiar position, and behaved in regard to his companions in such a manner, that they not only treated him always, but even gave him an excellent opportunity to reserve the greatest portion of the sweet-meats and knick-knacks, to sell at a later date, on very advantageous terms, to the very donors. Whilst still a child, he possessed sufficient strength of mind to refuse himself, and abstain from everything. Of the half-rouble given to him on the departure of his father, he had not spent a single copek, on the contrary, at the end of the year the sum at his disposal had increased considerably, showing nearly an incredible result of his carefulness and speculative mind. He commenced his speculation by making an hussar on horseback, out of wax, and sold him uncommonly advantageously. After this, his first success, he ventured sometime later into a variety of other speculations; such as buying honey-cakes in the marketplace, which he took with him to school and seated himself near those of his school-fellows, who were the richest, and as soon as he saw them moving about on their forms, with evident uneasiness, he took it for granted that his friend felt the pang of hunger, and immediately passed him under the bench a honey-cake or a copek-loaf, for which the other was but too glad to pay him at once, in order to satisfy the cravings of his boyish appetite.

He passed nearly two months at home devoting all his time and attention to the education of a mouse, for which he had made with his own little hands a wooden cage, and at last he had succeeded so far as to make the little animal sit up on its hind legs, lie down and get up again when commanded, and ultimately sold it very advantageously indeed. When he had economised about five roubles, he got himself a small bag, which he had sown himself, put the round sum of five into it, tied the bag up, and began to collect his rising capital in another.

As regards his conduct towards his teacher, he behaved himself, if possible, with even more wisdom. It must be observed that the master of that school was extraordinarily fond of quietude and good conduct, and could not bear the sight of intelligent and lively boys; he imagined that they would infallibly laugh at him. It was sufficient for any of the more intelligent boys to show their talent or make the master guess that they possessed some, even if it was betrayed by a slight movement with the eye-brows, it would have been sufficient to attract upon them his anger and resentment. He would persecute and punish the intelligent boy with unrelenting severity.

"'Twill cure you of your pretentions and want of respect, you saucy boy, and bring you back to your right senses; I'll make you kneel down—you shall have a day's fasting!" And the poor boy, not able to account for his punishment, had to kneel down and fast nearly every day.

"Disposition and talent! all that is stuff and nonsense!" he used to say: "I only look at your conduct. I will give any boy good marks for all sciences, no matter whether he know even the alpha of it, provided his conduct is good and praiseworthy; but wherever I observe a spirit of insubordination and inclination to ridicule, I'll give that boy a nought, whether he be talented enough to put a Solomon in his pocket!"

Thus spoke the master in the public school of Bobruisk, to his pupils, no doubt because he had himself been brought up in an establishment where the silent system was carried to such a perfection that a fly would have been heard flying across the school-room; where not one of the scholars in the course of the whole year had had ever any occasion to cough or blow his nose, and when not even the slightest noise ever betrayed that there were any scholars assembled.

Tchichikoff was also successful herein, and at once understood the animus of his school-master, and in what his general conduct towards him ought to consist. He never winked once, nor did he raise his eye-brows during the whole time the school hours lasted, however mischievously his school-fellows pinched and annoyed him; scarcely had he heard the bell ring as a sign for their dismissal, when he rushed forward before anyone else could have a chance, to hand his master his three-cornered headdress; when he had shown him this attention, he generally hastened to leave the school immediately, and always managed so well, as to meet his master at least three times on his road home, in order to have an opportunity to salute him, and take his cap off in the most respectful manner.

His manœuvres with his school-master were crowned with complete success. During the whole time of his being at the school, he always received the best marks, and on leaving it he was dismissed with the most flattering testimonials, and presented with a book with gold edges, and the following inscription in gold letters: "For praiseworthy application, and meritorious conduct."

[CHAPTER V.]

When Tchichikoff left the school, he made his appearance in the world as a young man of very prepossessing appearance, and with a chin that already had begun to require the services of a razor. At the very same period he lost in quick succession his fond parents. The inheritance left to him consisted of four worn-out flannels, two old and irretrievable coats lined with squirrel skins, and a trifling sum of money. His father had been, as it seemed, an excellent adviser as regarded economy, and the principles connected with it, but had done little himself to cultivate that virtue, for the little he left his son was very unimportant indeed. Tchichikoff sold at once the modest house and the small stretch of land attached to it for a thousand roubles, and took his hunchbacked servant and his then two little boy serfs Selifan and Petruschka with him to the town of Pskov, where he intended to establish himself, and enter the service.

During the time of his preparations for departure from Bobruisk, his old school-master, who had been so very fond of silence and good conduct, had been dismissed in his turn from the public school, either for his stupidity or some similar reason. The poor master, overwhelmed with grief at his disgrace, addicted himself to drinking, and at last could not even satisfy that inclination from the want of the necessary funds; ill in health, without a crust of bread or any assistance, he hid himself and his sorrows in a miserable cold hovel.

Some of his former scholars, especially those who had displeased him so particularly, on account of their malicious intelligence, when they heard of his pitiable condition, immediately raised a subscription in his favour among them, depriving themselves even of many little necessaries to assist the poor ruined man. Pavel Ivanovitch Tchichikoff was the only one who lacked generosity; he contributed the smallest silver coin of the realm, adding that he could afford no more; his colleagues refused to accept the donation, and called him a miserable specimen of selfishness personified.

The poor school-master, when he heard of this trait of one whom he considered his best scholar, covered his face with both hands, and burst into a flood of tears, which trickled down his pale and meagre cheeks like shot, until his eyes became dim like those of a crying child. "On my death-bed Heaven has condemned me to shed tears over a serpent," exclaimed he at last, in a feeble voice, and then added again: "Oh, Pavel Pavluschka! it is thus, then, that men can change! and when I think of it again, what an excellent boy he used to be, always of an exemplary conduct, no vestige of malice in him! He has deceived me, cruelly deceived me!" And hereupon the instructor of Tchichikoff's early youth breathed his last.

Nevertheless, it cannot be said that the nature of our hero was of a harsh and unfeeling description, or to such a degree insensible that he did not feel pity and sympathy for the sufferings of others; he felt the one as well as the other, he would have been even glad to alleviate the wants of his friends, provided they would not prove expensive, nor oblige him to break into that sum of money, which he had laid aside with the intention of not touching it under any circumstances, for he bore in mind his father's advice: "Take care and economise your copeks, or you will come to a bad end." However, he had no particular attachment to money, for the sake of money, he was not ruled by a stingy feeling of saving, nor was he a niggard. No, he was not animated with an insatiable desire for wealth, for the sake of keeping it hidden; life opened itself before him with all its attractions for a youthful mind; he wished to possess a beautifully furnished house, carriages and horses, and numerous serfs and servants, such were the thoughts that begun early to pre-occupy his mind.

And it was in order to obtain all these wishes and comforts in the course of time and his life, that he economised every copek he possibly could, and that he strictly refused himself in his earlier years all pleasures, or to others any assistance. Whenever he happened to see a wealthy parvenu drive along the streets, showing off a splendid droschki, and richly caparisoned horses, he would stop short and admire him with an air of envy, and forget himself in the sight before him, then suddenly recovering as if from a dream, add: "Some years ago you were perhaps a serf, you have purchased your freedom, and are rich; but for all that I see your origin by the peculiar cut of your hair!"

And the sight of all those that appeared to him to enjoy fortune and comforts, produced upon him a sorrowful impression to a certain degree inexplicable to himself. When he had left his school, and disposed of his trifling estate, he would not allow himself even the least relaxation, but was full of anxiety to begin his task in life at once, and enter the service in a civil capacity without delay. However, notwithstanding his excellent testimonials, he obtained with great difficulty a modest situation in a government office.

And heaven knows that in a country like Russia, the greatest talent is worth little without influential protection to back it! The place he held in the government office was an insignificant one which brought him an annual revenue of no more than forty or fifty roubles. But he was determined to work hard, to overcome all difficulties, and to succeed. And, really, perseverance, patience, and self-denial were qualities which he revealed in an incredible perfection. From the early morning until late at night, never feeling the fatigues of body and mind, he continued, to apply himself to his writings and copies; he never went home, but slept upon the benches and tables of the government office, he used to dine often even with the porter and servants; but with all that he knew how to preserve cleanliness and a respectable appearance in his dress, to give a pleasant expression to his face, and even assume some semblance of nobility in his movements and manners.

It must be observed that the official servants of the crown distinguish themselves generally by neglected, and in every respect disadvantageous appearance and manners. And this was especially the case with the colleagues of Tchichikoff; the faces of some of them looked really like badly-baked bread; the one had a cheek all on one side, another a chin out of proportion, a third was gifted with an upper lip as large as a bladder, which even used to burst now and then, in a word, they were far from being handsome. They used to speak in a harsh and unpleasant tone of voice, as if they had conspired to cut some ones' throat; they were addicted to pay frequent tributes to Bacchus, proving by such an inclination that the Sclavonic race was still addicted to the worship of the heathen gods; they did not even mind making their appearance in the office tolerably inebriated, which spread an unpleasant perfume all around the place, and which was far from being aromatic.

In the midst of such an assembly of employés of the Imperial Government, it was impossible that such a man as Tchichikoff should remain unnoticed and undistinguished; presenting, as he did, in every respect such a striking contrast as regarded his personal appearance, general bearing, and above all other good qualities, total abstemiousness from any intoxicating drink, as if he had secretly joined some teetotal brotherhood in England.

Notwithstanding all these advantages in his favour, his path to glory was a very difficult one indeed: he happened to be the under-clerk of a chancery-judge, an elderly man, who was the very image of insensibility and sternness; always the same, unapproachable, whose face had never been wrinkled by a smile, whose lips had never whispered even an inquiry after another fellow-creature's health. Nobody could have said, that he ever knew this man, or saw him different from what he appeared daily, whether in the open street, or in his own lonely house; if he had shown but once a slight interest in anything, if he could have but once forgotten himself and his sternness by getting intoxicated, and then have betrayed a smile; if he could but for once have given himself up to a mad gaiety like the highwayman, who, after the capture of a rich booty gives way to intemperance and debauchery—but no, there was not a vestige of anything of this sort, in this granite man. There seemed absolutely nothing in the man; he was not a villain, and yet he possessed no virtues, and something awful seemed to replace the visible absence of all else.

The hard, marble-like features of his face, without any striking irregularities, presented no harmony; his harsh features were in an unpleasant contradiction with themselves. The traces and little holes left by small-pox which covered his whole face, were the only striking peculiarities which classed it among the number of those faces, upon which, according to a popular saying, the devil had been threshing peas over-night. Now, although it appeared, at first sight, as if human ingenuity would fail to ingratiate itself with such a being, nevertheless Tchichikoff made the attempt.

In the commencement of this superhuman design, he began by trying to anticipate his slightest wishes in the merest trifles; examined most carefully every one of the quills, with which he was in the habit of writing, and after having made them as it were to pattern, he took good care to place them always ready to his hand; blew and swept from his table the snuff as well as the dust; supplied him with a new rag for the use of his inkstand; found out the place where he used to keep his official cap, a most filthy affair, such as has, perhaps, been rarely seen before, and took good care to place it constantly close to him at the last moment of his sitting in the office; brushed his back, if the old man had happened to rub off the whitewash from the wall; but all the attentions remained without being in the slightest degree noticed, just as if they had never happened to be shown to him.

At last, however, Tchichikoff succeeded in putting his nose as it were into the household and domestic life of the old original, and discovered that he had an adult daughter, with a face resembling that of her father, that is to say, a face with traces upon it, as if the devil had been threshing peas on it over-night. Upon this quarter he now determined on directing his attacks. When he had ascertained to which church she was in the habit of going on Sunday, he watched her enter, and took up his position exactly opposite to her, carefully dressed, and with a stiff collar, and neatly-plaited shirt-front.

By this stratagem he ultimately succeeded; the stem chancery-judge began to waver, and gave him an invitation to tea; and, before the other officials had yet found time to look around them, Tchichikoff had brought matters to such a satisfactory conclusion for himself, that he soon saw himself established in the house, and living with the old chancery-judge. He had rendered himself a useful and indispensable servant to the old man, and went to market for him to purchase meal and sugar for him; towards his daughter he behaved as if she were his bride; as for the old judge, he had accustomed himself to call him dear papa, and ever kissed his hand.

All the officials of the judge now expected that at the end of the month of February, before the long and general fast began, their friend and colleague, Tchichikoff, would become the happy and chosen husband of their superior's daughter. The stern and harsh old judge now begun even to bestir himself in his favour and to push him forward, and really, in a short time after, Tchichikoff was himself promoted to the vacant seat of a chancery-judge. With this success also, seemed to terminate the principal aim of his intimacy with the stem old judge; because, scarcely had he been appointed to his new office, when he secretly removed all his property from the house of his patron, and on the following day he was already quite at home in his new apartments. He ceased henceforth to call the old chancery-judge, papa, nor did he ever after think of kissing his bony hand, and as for the anticipated marriage with the judge's daughter, it was left to oblivion, and as if such a subject had never been on the tapis. However, whenever he happened to meet the old man in the street, he would always advance civilly towards him, take him by the hand and invite him to a cup of tea at his house, so that the old judge, notwithstanding his eternal sternness and inexplicable indifference to anything generally, could not help shaking his grey head thoughtfully, and murmuring in his beard: "He has deceived me, awfully deceived me, this child of Satan!"

[CHAPTER VI.]

This was the most difficult passage during the whole course of Tchichikoff's eventful career. Thenceforward his progress towards position and fortune became easier, and in course of time he even became a man of some importance and weight. He now began to display all those qualities that ensure success in the world; agreeable in his manners, delicate in his actions, and enterprising in business. Blessed in the possession of such indispensable and valuable qualifications, he succeeded in a very short time in securing himself a certain income and independent position, from which he knew how to derive excellent advantages.

It must be observed that at that particular time, and in consequence of the bitter complaints that had reached the imperial ears about the merciless exactions of the official employés in the provinces of the Empire, the Lord-Lieutenants of the various governments had received strict injunctions to punish with the utmost severity the impudent impositions of the imperial servants, and courts of inquiry were everywhere held for the purpose of putting a stop to the sufferings of the people from these imperial blood-suckers. These courts of inquiry did not in anyway alarm Tchichikoff, on the contrary, he even knew how to derive advantages from this imperial ordinance, and he furnished a striking proof of the ingenuity of the Russian spirit, which is always prepared to find ways and means when necessity demands them.

In order to avoid any unpleasant consequences, he had adopted the following system: as soon as a petitioner presented himself before him and proceeded to explain his case, and put his hand into his pocket with the evident intention of producing from there the requisite letter patent of recommendation, in order to obtain his Excellency's the Prince Hovanskois' (as we call it familiarly) signature to his document, "No, no," he used to say, with a smile on his countenance, whilst stopping the egress of the generous hand, "you think, perhaps, that I—oh no, by no means. It is our bounden duty, we are obliged to attend to your interest without the slightest pretention to a private remuneration for our trouble. As regards your application, you may rest tranquil and assured it shall be attended to by to-morrow at latest. Allow me to request the favour of your address; you need not even take the least trouble further about the matter, all your documents shall be forwarded to your house."

The enchanted petitioner returned home quite in ecstacy, thinking to himself: "At last I have met an honest man among our imperial employés, and I should be very glad to see more men of a similar stamp among us. He is a real gem!" The delighted petitioner waits patiently for a day, and then a second, and then a third day passes without his business or application having been sent to his house as promised. He returns again to the government office, and finds that his business has not been even begun; he addresses himself to the invaluable gem.

"Oh, I beg of you a thousand pardons, my dear Sir!" says Tchichikoff, very politely, and affably laying hold of both the hands of the disappointed petitioner, "but really, we had so very much business on hand; however, by to-morrow you shall be attended to, absolutely, by to-morrow, and most punctually, I can assure you, my dear Sir, I feel quite ashamed at the delay!"

And all this was said in the most winning manner, and accompanied by the most civil courtesies. If, on such an occasion, his morning gown (imperial employés generally transact public business at home, and in a very dégagé costume,) should accidentally unfold itself; his hands were always prepared to cover up the folds and amend the négligé? appearance. But, notwithstanding these civil assurances, the petitioner's business was neither attended on the next day nor on the day following, nor even on the next day following the day following.

The disappointed petitioner began to repent; can there be anything the matter? He at last comes to the conclusion, that it has always been the custom to give a gratuity to the copying-clerks.

"And why should I not give a trifle to these poor fellows?" says he to a friend. "I know but too well how miserably the government pays their services; I am ready and willing to give them a couple of roubles, to be sure."

"A couple of roubles will never do; you will have to fork out a bank-note."

"What! a bank-note to copying-clerks?" demands again the astonished petitioner.

"Why do you seem surprised, or out of temper?" his friends ask him; "what you anticipate will happen according to your intentions; the copying-clerks will receive a couple of roubles, and the remainder of your bank-note will find its way into the pocket of their superior."

The perplexed and slow-minded petitioner strikes his forehead with his hand, and is surprised at the changes in this world, and the new polite customs that had suddenly sprung up among the imperial employés. Formerly, a petitioner knew exactly what to do, and how to behave himself: he had simply to present a ten-rouble note to the head employé, and his business was attended to; but now-a-day a twenty-five-rouble note seems scarcely sufficient, and you have even to wait for a week before you can guess it. The devil take the shameless civilities and nobility of the imperial employés!

Some time after his instalment in his new dignity, an excellent opportunity to advance his fortunes presented itself to Tchichikoff; a committee was being formed for the construction of a very extensive and capital government storehouse. Tchichikoff found ways and means to be elected a member of it, and soon proved himself to be one of the most active promoters. This committee began its operations immediately. During six years, the committee busied itself about the building: but, whether it was the harshness of the climate, or the fault of proper material, the Crown building never rose above its foundations.

Meanwhile, and at the other end of the town, there sprung up, as it were from the ground, houses built on the principles of modern architecture, and the individual property of each member of the building-committee. These members now began to enjoy the well-being of home comforts, and got married in quick succession. It was then, and then only, that Tchichikoff began by degrees to emancipate himself from the harsh laws of abstinence and pitiless privations which he had imposed upon himself. It was only now that he ventured to relax from his long tasting, and it seemed that he had not always been a stranger to the enjoyments of comfort and general well-being, from which he had had sufficient strength of mind to abstain during the years of his adolescence, when no man can pretend to have been complete master of his passions.

He now even went as far as to display a few extravagant propensities, such as keeping a cook of some reputation, and made the purchase of very fine Irish linen shirts. As for the cloth which he wore, it was no longer of such inferior quality as was worn by the other officials of the province; he began to bring into fashion different shades of coffee and snuff-colours, and similar brownish tints; he made the acquisition of a fine pair of carriage-horses, and used to drive about in a droschki and pair, holding the reins of one of the horses himself, and making the horse bend his neck into the shape of a ring; he also began to indulge in a fine Turkish sponge to wash his face with, mixing his water profusely with Eau-de-Cologne; he even went so far as to buy a peculiar kind of soap, which was very expensive, but possessed the virtue to render the skin of his face smooth and velvety; he already—

But suddenly—in the place of the former sleepy president of the building-committee, a new chairman was appointed by the imperial ordinance: a military man, severe and strict in his principles—a man who was an enemy to all impositions upon the public as well as upon the Crown; in short, a detester of falsehood in any shape. Immediately after the day of his arrival, he caused a general consternation among the members of the building-committee by demanding a report and an account of their proceedings, and found defalcations at every step of his investigations; he also discovered and inspected the houses of modern architecture. In consequence of all these discoveries, he assembled a general meeting, and pushed his inquiries with the utmost diligence and severity. All the employés connected with the building-committee were at once dismissed the service; their houses of modern architecture were confiscated for the benefit of the Crown, and changed into benevolent institutions and public schools; all was blown down, as it were, like castles in the air, and among the severest sufferers was our friend Tchichikoff.

His general countenance and his affable manners, strange to say, displeased the new president at first sight; the exact reason, Heaven only knew, sometimes such results will happen quite unaccountably, but the fact remained the same—the new president could not endure the sight of the old committee member. However, as he happened to be a military man, it was not likely that he could know much, if anything, of the ways and means of officers in the civil service; and in a very short time indeed, and thanks to a respectable exterior, and the knowledge of applying themselves to any and everything, other employés found an opportunity of ingratiating themselves in the good graces of the new president, and the new honest and upright commander found himself soon in the hands of another and, if possible, a more dishonest set of officials than the former, and of which fact he had no opportunity of convincing himself; he was even much satisfied at having at last met with honest men, such as the Crown ought always to employ, and boasted of his own judgment in the choice he had made.

His new employés guessed and understood their chiefs character at once. Every one of the men who were under his command, became desperate hunters after anything that bore the slightest semblance to falsehood; everywhere, and under all circumstances, they prosecuted untruth like a fisherman of the Volga would hunt after a fine sturgeon; and they hunted after it with so much perseverance and success, that in a very short time indeed every one found himself at the head of a capital of a few thousand roubles.

At that very same period, a number of the former employés of this same committee turned again upon the way of truth, and were graciously received again in the service with their colleagues. But Tchichikoff, notwithstanding his strenuous exertions to ingratiate himself again, and in spite of the protection of his intimate friend, the private secretary of Prince Hovanskoi, who had become the right-hand man of the new president of the building-committee, he could not succeed in obtaining for him the most insignificant appointment under the new manager of the imperial interest. The president was a man of a peculiar character, though he was led by the nose (of this fact he was of course unaware); he would persevere in his once fixed opinion, provided it had presented itself to his mind and attention, and whenever it had taken root in his head, it would remain fixed there like a nail; nothing would ever be strong enough to extricate it from there, for he was frill of tenacity.

All that his friend, the private secretary of the Prince, could possibly obtain for Tchichikoff, was the destruction of the sullied certificate of his services as an employé in the building-committee; and even this favour he could only extract from his superior by a representation in the most touching terms of the pitiable position of Tchichikoff's family, which, by the bye, he had the good fortune of counting among the things that were not in existence.

[CHAPTER VII.]

"Well!" said Tchichikoff to himself, "it seems the bow could not stand the stretching. Tears will not amend the fault; I must betake myself to another task." And determined on beginning his career anew, he put on once more the armour of patience, and again subjected himself to every species of privations, however unpleasant they seemed now, after having accustomed himself to enjoy even luxuries. He was obliged to remove to another town, and make himself again notable, if not notorious.

Somehow or another, matters did not go on satisfactorily at all. He was obliged to resign two or three appointments in a very short space of time: the duties were in his opinion rather onerous and mean. It must be observed that Tchichikoff was a man of such unexceptionable propriety, it would have been difficult to meet with another like him anywhere in the broad Russian Empire. Although he had been obliged to wind his way through the midst of a sullied society, yet he had always succeeded in keeping his heart and his person clean; he was fond of holding an appointment in an office where the tables were well polished, and where gentlemanly habits were strictly regarded. He was never guilty of coarse expressions in his conversation, but was always offended when others omitted to show due respect to rank and position.

It will perhaps be interesting to our reader to know, that he had the habit of changing his linen every other day, and in summer, during the excessive heat, even every day; the least odour gave offence to his olfactory nerves. For this very reason, whenever his servant Petruschka came to undress him and take off his boots, he used to hold a smelling-bottle to his nose, whilst in many other instances his nerves were as sensitive as those of a young girl; and for this reason it was all the more difficult to him to accustom himself again to the habits of those who were addicted to the use of strong spirits, and generally displayed unbecoming manners. However much he tried to exert himself to keep up a good spirit within him, he nevertheless could not help pining away, and becoming even of a lemon-coloured complexion from the reverses of fortune.

He had already begun to grow corpulent and assume those pleasant and round forms, in which the reader found our hero at the commencement of the acquaintance with him, and more than once he had smiled at himself whilst looking at his face in the mirror and whilst whispering many a pleasant and insinuating smile; but now when he happened to look at himself furtively into the looking glass, he could not help exclaiming: "Holiest mother! how ugly I look to be sure!" And after this he would not venture to examine himself for a long while. However he endured and conquered the vicissitudes man-folly and patiently, and—at last entered the government service again, as a custom-house officer, in the frontier town of Bialystock.

We must here observe, that the custom-house service had been already for a considerable time the secret object of his wishes and speculation, because that particular branch of administration constitutes the chief revenue of the Empire, and consequently allowed the best pay to the officers employed in the service. But this was not the only reason for his giving the preference to a custom-house appointment. He saw with what exquisite articles of refinement all the custom-house officers used to parade in town, what fine china and linens they all sent to their sweethearts, sisters and cousins. And many a time he had already exclaimed, whilst heaving a deep sigh: "Oh, how I should like to get an appointment in the custom-house! the frontier is not far off, the people seem all more enlightened, and especially, what an excellent chance to provide one-self with fine linen!"

We must add, that at the same time, he also thought of the expensive French soaps, which had the virtue to increase and preserve the complexion! what its particular denominations was, heavens only knew, but accordingly to his suppositions, it would certainly absolutely be found at the frontier. And he therefore had long felt a desire to get himself an appointment in the custom-house; but he was prevented from sending in an application, on account of the advantageous profits which he derived from the building-committee, and in this his judgment was correct. Whatever the advantages of a custom-house appointment might offer in spe, they were nevertheless like a lark in the skies, whilst the building-committee was like an owl in his hands. Now was his time to exert himself to the utmost, and obtain the long wished for appointment in the custom-house, and really he at last obtained his wish.

He started upon his new duties with an unusual eagerness. Such abilities, penetration and application as he displayed in his new functions had not only never been witnessed before, but even never heard of. In less then three or four weeks after his appointment to office, he had so perfectly rendered himself master of everything, that his equal could not be found; he knew and understood all—he had no necessity either to weigh or measure anything, but knew from the invoices how many arschines a piece of cloth or silk contained; or on taking a piece of goods in his hands, he could say exactly how many pounds it weighed.

As regarded the regular business of an excise-man, namely, "searching," he displayed as his colleagues used to express themselves, the scent of a pointer; it was perfectly impossible not to be surprised, on seeing how he could display so much patience and trouble to touch and examine even every button, but all this was done with a killing coolness and an incredible politeness. And at the time, when the persons thus exposed to his "researches," were annoyed to madness, and lost their temper, and felt a wicked inclination to smash his pleasant countenance, he would, without changing either the expression of his face, or his polite manners, only add: "Would you, perhaps, have any objection to incommode yourself a little by rising from your seat?" or, "Would your ladyship have the kindness to step into the other room?" (even the ladies are not spared the annoyances of custom-house officers in Russia.) "There your ladyship will find the wife of one of our officials, who will have the honour to explain to you the regulations of the custom-house," or, "Will you allow me to rip up with this small pen-knife a little of the wadding of your cloak?" and saying this, and suiting the action to the word, he would produce from there, shawls and dresses as coolly as if he was taking them out of his own portmanteau.

His superiors even pronounced their opinion about him in the following terms, "that he was the devil himself and not a man:" he made his "researches" in carriage wheels, harness, and even in the ears of the horses, and heaven knows where he did not search for contraband goods; at any rate, an author would never hit upon the idea of searching in those places, where a custom-house officer has the right to pry.

The poor traveller who happened to leave or enter the Empire on that particular frontier, was sure to feel for some minutes at least, after the custom-house officer had performed his duty, the cold perspiration run down all over his body, and exclaim perhaps whilst crossing himself; "This is rather carrying custom-house regulations too far!" The position of a traveller who had the misfortune to fall in the hands of Tchichikoff, must have been similar to that of a schoolboy rushing out of the master's room, where he had entered under the impression that he would receive a simple reprimand, and where he had unexpectedly met with a sound thrashing.

In the course of a very short season indeed, those persons, who were in the habit of carrying on a regular system of contraband trade were completely ruined by his watchfullness. He was the terror and ruin of the whole of the Polish Jew race. His faith and honesty were unimpeachable—almost unnatural. He even declined to accept a portion of such monies as were the result of sales of the various confiscated goods or trifling sundry articles, which were not accounted for to the Crown, in order to avoid loss of time and expense.

Such zealous and disinterested service could not fail to become the subject of general admiration and surprise, and found at last its recompense with the higher authorities. He was knighted and elevated to the rank of Councillor of State, and soon after be submitted a project for capturing all contrabandists, asking only the favour to be appointed the executor of his scheme and for the necessary means. He was immediately invested with unlimited power, and the privilege of search wherever he thought proper. This was all he could wish for. At that time a large and powerful contraband society had been formed, based upon a regular system of fraud upon the Crown; more than a million worth of goods secretly imported into the Empire, yielded double the amount to this bold enterprize.

Tchichikoff had had long since an idea of this organization, and had even twice already repelled the envoys who had been sent to bribe him; but he refused to listen to any of their proposals, adding dryly, "It is not yet time." But scarcely had he obtained uncontrolled authority in everything, when he in the next moment after his confirmation, sent word to the secret associations, saying: "Now is the time."

His calculations were but too just. Now he stood a chance of gaining in one year, that which he could perhaps have never acquired otherwise in twenty. At the beginning of the foundation of this society, he would not have anything to do with them; because he was nothing else but a simple custom-house officer, consequently, besides perhaps compromising himself, his share in the transactions would have been insignificant; but now, now it was quite a different affair altogether; he was a Councillor of State, and could therefore fix his own terms.

In order to ensure speed and complete success, he even gained over another colleague of his, who could not resist the luring temptation, although he was already a greyhaired man. The conditions between the two contracting parties, namely the imperial employés and the contrabandists, were securely fixed, and the smuggling association began its operations.

The beginning of their operations was brilliant; some of our readers might perhaps have heard some time ago of the long-forgotten history of the wise Spanish sheep, who went out travelling in double coats; well, these very same Spanish sheep with a double fleece, imported on this occasion, Brussels lace of nearly one million roubles value. This was the first operation upon the interests of the Crown in which Tchichikoff played a prominent part. Had he presided over and led this undertaking himself, not even the cleverest and acutest Jew in the world would have ever succeeded in carrying out such a daring enterprize. After three or four journeys of the Spanish sheep across the frontier line, both chief custom-house officers had realized a capital of about four hundred thousand roubles each. It was even said, that Tchichikoff's share in the enterprize exceeded half a million roubles, because he was so much more daring.

Heaven knows to what incalculable amount these already very round and handsome sums of money would have increased in the course of time, if some evil spirit had not crossed in a fatal moment their path. The devil set the two chief officers by the ears; to speak intelligibly and simply, the two employés picked a quarrel about a mere nothing. Somehow or another, perhaps in a moment of excitement, and perhaps even while under the influence of a glass or two of good wine, Tchichikoff happened to call his worthy colleague a staròver (dissenter), and the other, though he really was a staròver, it is impossible to say why, felt horribly insulted, and answered him there and then, immediately, loudly, and in an unusually cutting tone of voice, as follows: "You lie! I am a Privy Councillor of State, and not a staròver; but as for you, you are a staròver!" And then he also added, a few minutes later, and as if to spite his friend: "Yes, take that and all!"

Though he had in this manner shaved the other, as it were, by retorting on him the appellation applied to himself, and though the expression of "Yes, take that and all!" might have had a powerful meaning; not satisfied with this, he sent in to government a secret information against Tchichikoff. However, it was said, that besides this quarrel, there was another cause of difference between them; and it was rumoured about, that it was concerning a woman, young, fresh, and healthy as a sweet beet-root, according to the expressions of the other custom-house officials; it was also known that some bravos had been hired to give a sound thrashing to our hero, which had really happened on a certain fine evening; but that, in the end, both superior's friends had been made fools of by the fair woman, and that a certain Stabz-Capitän Schamschareff gained the day over them, and succeeded in carrying the fair Briseïs off before their very noses.

The nearer particulars of this affair are wrapped in obscurity, and we therefore leave it to our courteous reader to imagine the details according to their own taste. The most important of all was, that the secret connection between our hero and the smugglers became known to the superior authorities. And though the Privy Councillor of State had ruined the simple Councillor of State through his infamous denunciation, he did not escape the due punishment himself, but was immediately degraded and dismissed.

Tchichikoff and his coadjutor were arrested and brought up to judgment, all their property was confiscated for the benefit of the Crown, and their misfortune and disgrace broke over them like a thunder-storm. When the storm was over, and when they began to recover again a little, they seemed quite horror-struck when they looked upon what they had been guilty of. The Privy Councillor could not resist the shock, and died soon after, but the simple Councillor of State bore up more manfully. He had succeeded in secreting a considerable amount of his fortune, notwithstanding the strictest investigations of the Court of Inquiry that was held over them. He used the finest diplomacy the human mind is capable of to extricate himself as advantageously as possible from his disgraceful position, and his experience assisted him in this most powerfully, for he knew already well enough of what stuff the men with whom he had to deal were made; he employed the greatest circumspection, his politest manners, the most touching and persuasive terms, burnt incense and confused his judges by a profusion of flattery, which did not in the least injure his position; he even went so far as to consider money no object, provided he could succeed in extricating himself; in a word, he turned the tables so well in his favour, that he could reappear again in the world, at least not so much disgraced as his more unfortunate colleague, for he ultimately succeeded, though narrowly, in escaping from being sent to Siberia.

[CHAPTER VIII.]

Tchichikoff's reserve funds had, however, dwindled down to a mere trifle; his splendidly furnished house with all its foreign refinements was taken from him and given as a reward to some other official. All that was left to him, amounted to a sum of about ten thousand roubles, besides a couple of dozen fine Holland shirts, a convenient, light britchka, to which bachelors give the preference for travelling purposes, and two faithful serfs, his coachman Selifan and his valet Petruschka, (the little hunchback had died some time before), and we must also not forget to mention that his former colleagues in office, moved by compassion at his disgrace and sad prospects—for they believed him penniless—had had the generosity to leave him a few pieces of that peculiar French soap which possesses the virtue of preserving the freshness of the skin; and this was all that he could call his property.

And it was in such a position that our hero made his appearance! Such then was the excess of misfortunes that befel him! And this it was what he called in Smolensk to suffer in the service for truth and the just cause. Now the conclusion might have been drawn that, after so many sad experiences and changes of fortune and position in life, he would wisely retire with his round sum of ten thousand roubles into a small and quiet provincial town, and put on for ever a comfortable Tartar cotton morning-gown, and seat himself at the window of some modest private house, and look on a Sunday at the fights and quarrels of the mouzhiks before him in the street; or take a walk in the poultry-yard, and feed with his own hands the fowl which he would like to have cooked for his dinner, and would have continued to lead a quiet and retired though not entirely useless existence.

However, it did not happen thus. Justice must be rendered to his unconquerable fortitude of character. All that had happened to him would perhaps, if not have killed another man, at least would have served him as a caution and quieted him; but with our hero it was not so, the inward flame of his passion was as ardent as ever. He felt acute grief and vexation, swore at the whole world, angry at the injustice of Providence, disgusted at the injustice of men in general; but for all that he could not forbear making new essays. In a word, he displayed such an extraordinary amount of patience and perseverance, against which the wooden patience and perseverance of a German are nothing, because it is constitutional with them.

Tchichikoff's blood, on the contrary, was like an ever-playing fountain, and it was requisite for him to possess a powerful will and wisdom, to bridle all those passions which would have liked to escape and enjoy unbounded freedom. He began to muse and to reflect on the past and on the future, and the conclusions he arrived at were not at all devoid of sound judgment.

"Why should it be always I? Why should I continually be the victim of a cruel destiny? Who is the man in our empire who lingers over his duties? All, the whole nation, from the Emperor himself down to the meanest serf, all have their mind bent upon acquisition. I have ruined nobody; I have not robbed the lonely widow, nor have I made any children orphans. I have derived profit from superfluities, have only taken what every one else in my place would have taken; if I had not profited by the chance offered me, others would have done so. Why should others alone enjoy wealth and comforts, and why I alone be condemned to live and die like a worm?

"And what am I now? For what am I good now? With what countenance should I now be able to look into the face of any pater familias? How can I escape the pangs of shame, knowing that I walk uselessly on the face of the earth: and what will my children say when I am dead and gone? They will say our father was a villain: he left us no position, no fortune!"

It is already well known to our readers that Tchichikoff was particularly anxious about his heirs. A very tender subject. Many a man would perhaps venture head and neck, if it was not for the question which presses itself inexplicably upon him—"What, will my children say?" And the possible head of a future generation, like a precautious cat, looking sideways to espy if his master is in the way, seizes hurriedly everything that happens to be near him, either a piece of soap, some candles, tallow, or a canary bird if it should happen to fall under its claws; in a word, he allows nothing to escape.

Thus lamented our disconsolate hero: meanwhile his activity was not extinguished within him; it only slumbered for a while. There was always something that preoccupied his mind, and only waited for the chance of a sound plan. He armed himself once more with his peculiar virtues, and determined again to begin an active and difficult life; he again submitted himself to the well-known privations of former life, and again from an elevated and respectable position, he launched himself into sullied and low life. And in the expectation of something better turning up, he was obliged to accept the situation of a commission-agent, a profession yet badly received and acknowledged by our citizens, pushed about on all sides, shabbily paid and treated with disregard and even with contempt. However, necessity obliges us to many things, and also excuses them, and our hero therefore determined upon accepting the situation.

Among a variety of business with which he had been entrusted, was also the following: to mortgage in the Imperial Bank of the Council of Guardians, a few hundred serfs. The nobleman who had commissioned him to undertake this business was ruined, and reduced to the last extremity. His landed property was already completely encumbered, by an epidemic among his cattle, villainous and dishonest stewards, bad harvests, epidemic diseases which had carried off numbers of his most valuable serfs, and at last by the follies of the nobleman himself, who had purchased and furnished a house in St. Petersburg at an extravagant expense but in the last Parisian fashion, and who had spent upon this mad fancy his last rouble, so that he had nothing to eat. And for this reason, he was obliged to have recourse to the last extremity, and determine upon parting with his life estate.

The Imperial Bank for the mortgage of landed property and serfs, under the title of Council of Guardians, is one of the numerous paternal institutions of recent date, and of all of which his Majesty the Emperor is himself the head. The transactions of the Imperial Council of Guardians claim his peculiar attention, and consist chiefly in advancing monies to such noblemen of the Empire as have become embarrassed from various causes, but principally from such as we have already alluded to. The monies of the Crown are advanced upon real estate, namely upon land and serfs. It is principally left to the Council of Guardians to fix the period for repayment of the advanced funds, and if the nobleman thus assisted cannot redeem his mortgaged property in due time, it is again left to the discretion of the Imperial Council of Guardians to have the property of the nobleman valued by a special committee, and then it is sold to the Crown, which, after refunding itself, hands the residue to the thus ruined nobleman.

This system of paternal accommodation, which the Russian nobility enjoys at the hands of his Majesty the Emperor, fully accounts for the enormous number of Crown serfs, which number has increased since the establishment of the Imperial Council of Guardians nearly to a million souls.

At the time when Tchichikoff was intrusted with the mortgage of those few hundred serfs, the Council of Guardians had been but recently established, yet much of its operations had already transpired, and circulated among the nobility, and for that reason they were very reluctant to profit by this paternal accommodation. Tchichikoff, in his capacity of agent, had received instructions to conclude the mortgage of the serfs on the most advantageous terms; he therefore thought it proper to dispose everything favourably, (without previously well disposing a few of the Imperial employés, it would be hopeless to apply for anything like information, and it is therefore advisable to smooth their throats with a profusion of port and sherry), and thus, having as far as necessary well-disposed every one of the employés in the Council of Guardians, with whom he would have to transact business, he explained his errand to be connected with a very peculiar circumstance.

"Half of the serfs I wish to mortgage, have died since my arrival here at Moscow, and I am therefore alarmed lest there might be some misunderstanding about them later—"

"But allow me to ask you," said the secretary of the Board of Guardians, "are these two hundred serfs we are now speaking about, included in the census your nobleman has handed in to government, when the last census was taken?"

"Yes, they are included," answered Tchichikoff.

"If so, I can see no reason why you should feel faint-hearted?" the secretary returned, "if the one dies, another is born, and thus makes up the deficiency."

Meanwhile, a sublime idea seized upon the imagination of our hero, a thought that had perhaps never occurred to human mind before.

"Oh, I am the very image of simplicity," he said to himself, "I am looking about for my gloves, and have them already on my hands. Suppose I were to buy up all those serfs that have died lately, and before the new census is taken, suppose I made the acquisition of about a thousand dead serfs, and, suppose the Council of Guardians was to make me the trifling advance of two hundred roubles for each such serf; that would make a capital of two hundred thousand silver roubles. And now is just my time, an epidemic has but recently ravaged the whole of the country, and, thank Heaven, the number of people that have died from it is not insignificant at all. The country gentlemen have lost much, thanks to their gambling propensities, they have spent a deal in feasting, and have, in fact, ruined themselves most satisfactorily; all seem to have hurried off to St. Petersburg, to seek for appointments at court; their estates are neglected, and are administered any how, the payment of imposts to the Crown becomes with every year more difficult, and therefore, I am led to suppose that they will be glad to cede to me their valueless dead serfs, in order to avoid the payment of the annual tax upon them till the return of the next census; it might even happen that some of them will not only jump at my offer to purchase their valueless stock, but even pay me something extra for my generosity, my philanthrophy.

"Nevertheless, and, of course, it is a difficult, a complicated, a dangerous undertaking, for I might easily get myself into serious trouble, perhaps cause a great scandal, be sent to Siberia.... But wisdom an imagination have been given for some purpose to man. That, the most encouraging feature in my speculation, is, that the subject will appear incredible to every one, nobody will ever believe it. It is true, according to a recent ukase, it is impossible to buy serfs without the land they were born upon, nor can they be mortgaged without it. But I mean to purchase them for emigration, yes, for settling them elsewhere, now vast tracts of land are granted for a mere nothing in the provinces of Kherson, and close to the Turkish frontiers.

"It is there that I will settle them; in the government of Kherson; close to the Turkish frontiers; let them live among the heathens. As for their privilege of emigration, that can be done lawfully, and according to the sense of the imperial ukase, all this can be legally settled in the proper courts of the Crown. If they should ask me the proofs of the existence of such serfs? Why not? I shall not be at a loss to do even that, and from the very returns of the census, and with the genuine signature of the Capitän-Ispravnik (district judge). The new village which is to spring so suddenly into existence, I shall call 'Tchichikoff's New Settlement,' or according to the name which I received at my baptism, make from Pavel, 'The Village of Pavlovsk.'"

It is in this manner that the strange idea on which our story is founded, formed itself, in the head of our hero; whether our reader will feel himself under any obligation to him, we do not know; but as for ourselves we must confess, we feel indebted to Tchichikoff for this subject beyond description. Whatever might be said for or against it, without Tchichikoff's idea this novel would never have made its appearance.

Making a devout sign of the cross in the Russian fashion, Tchichikoff set about the execution of his fixed plan immediately. With a view of choosing places of residences, and under other pretences, he set about examining here and there the various corners of our vast Empire, and paid particular attention to those districts where the sufferings and losses from various disasters, such as epidemics, bad harvests, and other causes, had been felt most severely; in a word, he sought for those districts where he might be able to buy his stock, namely, dead serfs, on the most advantageous terms.

He did not address himself at random to every landed proprietor, and serf-owner, but made his choice among them, and according to the best of his judgment; or he applied to those men, from whom he had every reason to anticipate no particular scruples about transacting this strange business with him; he therefore introduced himself to them under the most favourable auspices, made their particular acquaintance, tried to gain their favourable opinion and esteem, so that he might, if possible, obtain from them what he wanted in a friendly manner, and as cheaply as possible.

From this reason, therefore, our reader must not be displeased with us, if the characters that will be introduced to them during the progress of Tchichikoff's career are not entirely to their taste, this is the fault of Tchichikoff, but not ours; for we are obliged to follow him wherever he chose to go. As for ourselves, if any blame should be cast upon us, for bringing such uncomely characters before a British public, especially at this present critical moment when a war with Russia is being carried on, we can only express our regret at the fact, but our conscience forbids us to represent our countrymen in any other than the real light.

Such then was the character of our hero, such as circumstances had created it, and the contact with the world and life had fashioned it in later years! But it is very likely that a positive definition of one of his characteristic traits will be demanded; what is he really as regards his moral qualifications? that he is not a hero full of perfections and virtues, we must confess, is obvious at first sight. Who, or what is he then? he must be a villain? Why should he be a villain? Why should we be so severe towards others? There are no real villains to be met with now-a-day; there are well disposed persons, agreeable, and even unexceptionable persons, but such persons, as would exhibit their physiognomy to the gaze of the world, and present their cheek for a public box on the ear, of such persons it is likely that two or three might be met with, and then even, they have begun already to speak of the charms of virtue.

We shall therefore be justified in calling our hero; not like the French a chevalier d'industrie but in simple English terms; a gentleman acquirer. Acquisition is the root of a great many evils, and that threatens our peace even now. The desire of acquisition rages now in all classes of society, and especially in Russia, commencing from the Emperor himself, down to his meanest serf, all are mad with a desire for acquisition. Without this desire on the part of the Emperor for the acquisition of Turkey, the nation at large would not have acquired the fanaticism to stand by his side, and back his mad propensity for acquisition; why should it not he excusable in one of his humble subjects?

Such then was the object which had brought our friend Tchichikoff to the pleasant town of Smolensk; the purchase, namely, of dead serfs. During the progress of his schemes, he was thrown into much curious society, and met with numerous queer adventures; these will form the subject matter of our work. While accompanying our hero on his perilous journey, we shall become acquainted with almost every class of Russian society, and the whole will furnish us at the least with a faithful, if not a flattering, idea of that nation which holds itself at the present day, as the supporter of the orthodox Church, and future master of the world's destinies.

In itself, the nefarious scheme devised by our hero, affords an extraordinary instance of the cunning inherent in the Russian character, for its whole success was based on the knowledge he possessed of the utter baseness of the national character. None of the actors in this strange drama will appear to exhibit the slightest compunction about defrauding the government, as long as they can gain any slight advantage to themselves, and even the certainty of condign punishment in the very possible event of detection, cannot cause them to refrain from their innate propensity. The fact is an humiliating one, but in our character as the historian of an actual event, we have not dared to omit a single trait which may seem to elucidate our story. We only wish it was in our power to draw a pleasanter portrait of our countrymen, and we fervently trust that the time may yet arrive when such stories as the present one, may be numbered among things that were.

[CHAPTER IX.]

More than a week had already passed away since Tchichikoff's arrival in Smolensk, during which time he had continued paying morning visits and attending dinner and evening parties, and in so doing, had spent—as the common phrase goes—his time very pleasantly. At last he determined upon extending his civilities beyond the limits of the town, and resolved to turn his attention to the pressing invitations of the landowners in the vicinity; among whom Maniloff and Sobakevitch were those to whom he had made a formal promise. It is very possible too, that this resolution arose from another, a more positive, a graver motive; perhaps, even an affair of the heart. But of all this the reader may learn more by degrees, and in proper time, if he will only take the trouble, and muster the patience, to read on and follow our traveller on his journeying.

Selifan, the coachman, had received instructions to be ready early in the morning, and to have his horses and the britchka ready to start at a moment's notice; Petruschka, his servant, was ordered to stay at home, and mind his master's apartment and his portmanteau. The reader will not deem it superfluous, we hope, to make the distant acquaintance of these two domestics of our hero, whom he was accustomed to call his men or serfs. Although, and of course, they will not have to appear as prominent characters, or even victims of despotism; yet, their denomination of serfs may serve us as an excuse for exciting the curiosity and sympathy of our courteous reader in their behalf, and for placing them among the third, or even second-rate personages, who are to figure in the adventures of our hero Pavel Ivanovitch Tchichikoff.

Although, the plot, or the links that connect the whole, is not especially founded upon them, still, now and then, they will have to appear in order to pull us through this long "chain of events;" besides, as we are in England, we like to be minute in everything, and in this instance, and regardless of our being a Russian, we will do our best, and try to be as particular as an Englishman. In addition, the description will demand but little time and space, for it will not be necessary to add much more to that which the reader already knows; we therefore proceed to state at once that Petruschka was accustomed to wear, and to walk about in a large snuff-coloured coat, formerly cast off from the broad shoulders of his master, and that he had, as is common among persons of his calling, a very large nose and broad lips. As regards his character, he was addicted more to the silent system, than inclined to talkativeness; he had a laudable inclination for general information, i.e. he was fond of reading books, though he did not care much about their contents; it was a matter of perfect indifference to him, whether it was the adventures of an amorous hero, or simply a spelling, or a prayer-book, he read them all with equal attention; if therefore, a grave work on chemistry had been presented to him, he would have accepted it with equal resignation. It was not what he read that pleased him, but more the reading itself, or better said, the process of reading, because from the composition of letters, originate words, which again when spelled have a meaning, which many a poor devil like Petruschka has every difficulty to understand.

He had the habit of going through his reading process, generally in a recumbent position, which he took up in the anteroom, where he used to stretch himself upon his bed and upon a mattress, which, in consequence of the frequent use and this peculiar indulgence of his, had shrunk into a mere nothing in comparison to its original size, and had actually become as thin as a pancake. Besides his passion for reading, he had two more characteristic habits; he liked to sleep without undressing, just as he was, in the same surtout, and conveying with him a je ne sais quoi, an atmosphere of his own, which was not unlike the odour of an over-crowded room, so much so, that it was sufficient for him to put up his bedstead, no matter where, if even in an hitherto uninhabited apartment, and bring into it his cloak and other articles of wardrobe, when suddenly it would seem as the chamber had been occupied for the last ten years.

Tchichikoff had his peculiarities as well, and was in many instances a man of delicate feelings; sometimes, when rising early in the morning, he would inhale the air with his refreshed nostrils, but of a sudden he would sneeze and slowly add: "Well, Petruschka, the devil knows it, you seem to perspire strongly. I only wish you would go and take a warm bath." To this, Petruschka made no reply, but tried to busy himself immediately with something; or he went with brush in hand to his master's dress-coat which was hanging over the door, as if to clean it; or would arrange or put some of his effects in order. It is difficult to say what he might be thinking of at this precise moment, when he was thus rebuked and silent; perhaps he thus spoke to himself: "What an original my master is, to be sure, he seems not to be tired of repeating the same observation, fifty times over." Heaven knows! it is very difficult to tell what a wretched serf thinks at the moment when his lawful master scolds him. However, this is all we have to say at present about Petruschka.

The coachman, Selifan, was quite a different man. However, on second thoughts, we feel rather timid about troubling our reader so much with the affairs of persons of so low a condition, for we know by experience how little inclination there exists to make acquaintance with the lower classes. At any rate that is the case in Russia, where we have ranks of every shade and description, and where a frightful predilection prevails to become acquainted with persons of merely a higher nuance of rank, and a bowing acquaintance with a count or a baron of the Empire, is esteemed but too often more valuable than the most intimate ties of friendship.

And thus passing over the coachman, Selifan, we return to our hero, who having given his orders and already made his preparations on the previous evening, awoke the next morning early, washed himself with a wet sponge from top to toe, an operation which he had a particular habit of performing, usually on a Sunday; the day happening to be the one as well on which he shaved himself carefully and even so minutely, that his cheeks looked as smooth and shiny as satin; he put on his coffee-coloured dress-coat with the gilt brass buttons, and then his travelling cloak with its numerous collars. Thus dressed he descended the staircase, carefully assisted, now on side, now on the other, by the one ever attentive head-waiter, until he took his seat in the britchka.

The travelling carriage drove with great noise from the court-yard into the open street. A passing priest respectfully saluted the traveller, as if giving him his benediction on the road, whilst a few boys in ragged shirts and breeches stretched out their little hands and shouted after him, "Pray, good gentleman, do not forget the wretched orphans." Selifan, the coachman, observing that one of the little urchins was very expert in throwing somersets, gave him a touch with his whip on passing him, and away went the britchka clattering over the stones.

It is with no little pleasure that a traveller beholds in the distance the painted mile posts, which are the limits of the fatiguing pavement and other annoyances on passing through a town; a little more shaking and jolting about in his carriage and Tchichikoff found himself at last upon a more even and pleasanter road. Scarcely, however, had he left the town at his back when his sight was gratified with, what we term, "rural beauty," on either side of the road, such as mole-hills, fir-trees, low and stunted shrubs, and pine groves intermixed and surrounded by juniper and other such trees and bushes. Now and then the scene would be enlivened by the sudden appearance of a village laid out in a monotonous-geometrical order, and resembling in its architecture a huge pile of timber covered over with a grey roof, under which the ornamental wood-carvings forcibly reminded one of the embellishments of a Dutch towel.

Here and there a few mouzhiks might be seen yawning as usual, and sitting upon their sheepskins before their houses, whilst the women with their fat bodies and cheeks were peeping out from the windows above; from the lower story of the houses some serious sheep or a sullen pig would exhibit their grave faces. Such are the scenes that present themselves but too often on the high roads of Russia.

After having passed the fifteenth werst, Tchichikoff bethought himself, that it must be about here that, according to the words of Maniloff, his estate and village ought to be found, but after having passed the sixteenth werst-post he still saw nothing of that which was so minutely described to him, and had it not been for two peasants who were just passing, it is very difficult to say whether Tchichikoff would have found the spot or not. Upon the question being put to them, how far it was to the estate called Zamanilovka, the mouzhiks took off their hats, and one of them, being rather more intelligent than his comrade, for he wore his beard in the pointed style, replied, "It is perhaps Manilovka and not Zamanilovka, that your glory wishes to inquire for?"

"Just so, yes, Manilovka!"

"Manilovka! very well, if you drive on a werst farther, you will be there, that is to say, straight on and then to the right."

"To the right?" now inquired the coachman, in his turn.

"Yes, to the right," replied the peasant, "that will be your road to Manilovka; as for Zamanilovka, such a village does not exist. It is called so, that is to say, its name is Manilovka, as for Zamanilovka you will not find it; straight on before you, you will perceive upon a hill a house built of stone two stories high, in which lives the master, that is to say the owner of the estate. That then will be Manilovka, but as for Zamanilovka there is no such a place here, and never was." They now drove off in search of Manilovka. They had already gone two wersts, and came to the turning of a private road; they seemed to have passed two, three and even four wersts more, but still they did not behold the stone building that was to be two stories high. Suddenly, Tchichikoff bethought himself that if a person invites a friend to visit him at his estate, situated about fifteen wersts from town, it usually turns out to be at least thirty wersts distance; at any rate, the situation of Maniloff's estate seemed at present to be known but to few.

The dwelling-house of Maniloff's family stood, nevertheless, on a rising hill, quite isolated, that is to say, upon an elevation exposed to all the winds that might be blowing from any quarter; the declivity of the mount upon which the house stood was surrounded by a carefully cut grass-plot, upon which were scattered about a few bushy heaps à l'anglaise, shrubs of lilac and yellow acacias; here and there a group composed of five or six birch trees raised their thin branches and small leaves, thus forming a scanty cupola. From between two such cupolas peered out a pavilion with a flat roof, painted in light green and resting upon wooden columns of a sky-blue colour, with the laconic inscription: "Temple of solitary meditation;" a little lower in the foreground a brook rushed forth noisily from under the green foliage, which is not an uncommon thing in an English garden belonging to a Russian proprietor.

At the foot of the elevation and partly upon its incline, were scattered in the distance and in all directions a number of small grey wooden huts, forming the village; at the sight of these dwellings our hero began—for some reason or other best known to himself—to count them; and on counting their number he found them upwards of two hundred. They were nowhere intersected by trees or shrubs, they presented nothing else but the monstrous appearance of heaps of wood as previously described.

The scene, however, was enlivened by two women, who had tucked up their petticoats in a quite picturesque manner, and fixed them carefully to their sides; they were wading up to their knees through the brook, holding each one end of a ragged net, in which might have been seen a couple of entangled crayfish, and a fat trout; the women seemed to have some dispute, for they appeared quarrelling and scolding one another. In the distance, on the right hand side of the hill, loomed a dull looking fir-tree forest. The weather even, seemed in harmony with the scenery; the day was not exactly a dull one, nor could it be called a bright one, the sky was of a peculiarly greyish tint, not unlike the worn-out cloak of a garrison soldier. To complete the tableau, the cock, the prognosticator of the changes in the weather, even seemed out of tune; regardless of the fact that his head was damaged by the beaks of his fellow-creatures—according to their fashion he was crowing à tue-tête and even clapped his tattered wings against his ragged sides.

[CHAPTER X.]

On driving up to the entrance-hall, Tchichikoff perceived the lord of the mansion standing upon the door steps, clad in a long parrot-green coloured surtout, holding his hands over his forehead in lieu of an eye-shade, no doubt for the purpose of concentrating his sight, for the purpose of more minutely examining the arriving carriage. Whilst the britchka was driving nearer towards the house, the eyes of the master seemed to dilate and brighten up by degrees, and his smiles increase in proportion.

"Pavel Ivanovitch," shouted Maniloff, for it was he, when he beheld Tchichikoff stepping out from the carriage; "at last you have been kind enough to remember us."

Both friends embraced each other most heartily, and Maniloff led his guest into the house. Although the time necessary for going from the outer premises into the anteroom, thence into the dining-room, until they arrived in the regular reception-room, would be rather short, yet we think it an opportune moment, and will endeavour to make the best use of it and say a few words en passant about the owner of the estate and mansion. But here we must observe that such an undertaking is fraught with many difficulties. It is far easier to delineate a strongly-marked character; to picture such a one is easy, for you have simply to throw the following characteristics upon the canvass, such as, black and piercing eyes, overshadowing eye-brows, a frowning forehead, a black, or fire-coloured large cloak thrown as if carelessly over the left shoulder—like Zamiel in "Der Freischütz"—and the portrait is finished; but there are men in this world, and they are numerous, who at first sight are very much alike, but if you look closer, you will find many unattainable traits and peculiarities in them, which are particularly their own; to describe this species of men is a very difficult task indeed. With them, it is necessary to use strenuous exertions and the greatest attention, before you are able to delineate even a portion of the fine and nearly imperceptible traits of their character, and in general, it is requisite to set about into such an undertaking with an experienced mind and eye.

Heaven alone, therefore, could, with any correctness portray the character of Maniloff. He seemed to belong to that class of men which we term in Russia among the good-natured ones, "neither a clown in town, nor a fool in the village." At first sight, he was a man of rather prepossessing appearance, and of a pleasing countenance; but these advantages seemed to have been too much sugared by nature. In his manners and demeanour there was something which courted acquaintance and friendship; he smiled enticingly; he was fair, and had blue eyes. In the beginning of a conversation with him it was impossible not to say: "What an agreeable and kind-hearted man!" and the following moment you would say nothing; whilst in the third you would most likely exclaim: "The devil understand the man, and what he means!" and you will leave him; if you have not that good fortune, you are sure to feel a killing ennui. You will not hear from his lips anything amusing, not even an insinuation, which you may hear from any one else, provided you touch but slightly the chord which is most in harmony with his interests.

Every one has his hobby-horse in conversation, as in other matters; the one has all his passion concentrated upon dogs and horses; another fancies he is an herculean admirer of music, and acutely feels all its delicate passages; a third is a passé maître in gastronomy; a fourth endeavouring to play a rôle, if but an inch loftier, then the one assigned to him by nature and his position in society; a fifth, with more moderation in his wishes, meditates how he could manage to be seen on the promenade walking side by side with an imperial colonel, or aide-de-camp, thus to show himself off to his friends known and unknown, in a word, every one has his peculiar ways and manners; but Maniloff had none.

At home he was accustomed to speak but little, for he seemed always busy thinking and meditating, but what about? that also might be known in Heaven. Nor could it be said that he busied himself in the management of his property, for he never took the trouble to visit his fields or his estate in general; thus, then, agriculture was left to go and find its own way. If his steward spoke to him, and suggested an alteration or improvement, saying, "This or that could or might be done for the better." "Yes, not a bad idea, that of yours, steward," would be his invariable reply, and he continued to smoke his Turkish pipe, a habit which he had contracted at an early age, while serving in the Caucasus, where he was pronounced to be one of the quietest, nicest, and best-bred officers in the regiment; "Yes, not a bad idea, indeed," would he repeat in conclusion.

If one of his peasants came to him, and whilst speaking to his lord and master, scratched his head, and stroked his beard, saying: "Would your glory allow me to go to town in search of work, and better my condition?" "Go," he would reply, and continue to smoke his pipe, for the idea never occurred to him that his serf came to ask him the privilege of absenting himself, for the purpose of becoming a drunkard.

Sometimes Maniloff would also lean over his balcony, and look silently upon the lawn and noisy brook before him, and then add: "How well it would be if there was a subterranean walk leading from the house, or a stone bridge across the murmuring brook, upon which I should have liked to see little shops on either side, occupied by tradesmen, who could satisfy my peasants' wants." At such and similar thoughts and wishes, his eyes used to fill to overflowing with their peculiar sweetness, and his countenance expressed the greatest satisfaction; these projects, however, remained what they originally were—thoughts and wishes.

In his study, there was always the same book lying on the same place, with a mark on its seventeenth page, which he had acquired the habit of reading for these last two years. In his house there was continually something wanting, either here or there; in the drawing-room there was some superb furniture covered with rich silken damask, which no doubt must have been very expensive; two chairs, however, were to be seen there, uncovered with this material, no doubt for want of it, and therefore, were left to exhibit their uncovered carcases; nevertheless, Maniloff had every time the politeness to caution his guests not to seat themselves upon any one of them; because, said he, they were not yet ready.

In some of the rooms there was even no furniture at all, although he had often spoken of the necessity of furnishing them, especially during the first weeks after his marriage: "My darting," he used to say to his wife, "my darling, it will be necessary to provide these rooms with proper furniture, if only temporarily, until we get more settled." In the evenings, a candlestick of fashionable appearance—dark bronze, with three small figures, representing the graces, and richly ornamented with mother-of-pearl, would be placed on the table; but, next to it another one—a common brass invalid, shaky, bent down on one side, and greasy all over, yet, without either the master, the mistress, or any of the domestics being aware of it. His wife—however, they seemed perfectly satisfied with each other. Although more than eight years had elapsed since they had lived in happy matrimony, still they continued to be upon petits soins one for another, and exchanged all sorts of sweet-meats and affections, which were offered and accepted in the most touching tones of voice, as for an example: "My darling, open your rosy lips, and I will put this sweet little bit into your mouth." And of course, the pretty little mouth was gracefully opened at such a loving request.

Birth-days were celebrated by exchanging all kinds of agreeable surprises, such as knitted articles and embroideries in silk, wool and pearls, and other ornamental knick-nacks. And very frequently too, whilst the husband was sitting in his easy-chair and his wife on the sofa, either the one or the other party would suddenly rise, heaven knows from what impulse, and leave—he his pipe, and she her needlework, if she happened to have some of it in her hands just at that moment—for the purpose of impressing a tender and such a long and affectionate kiss, that it would have been easy to smoke a pachito during the time this affectionate demonstration lasted.

In short, they were what is commonly called on the happiest terms. Of course, we could observe, that there are many other occupations in a house besides continued kissing and bickering, fating birth-days, and exchanges of presents; and many and various are the questions that could be put as regards a household in general. Why, for instance, is the kitchen department so much neglected? Why are the provision stores so indifferently attended to? Why is the housekeeper dishonest, and why are the servants so slovenly and negligent? Why does the whole batch of domestics sleep so mercilessly long, and waste the time during which they are awake? But all these facts and observations were beneath the notice of Madame Maniloff, for she was well-bred and brought up. And a good education, as is well known everywhere, can only be obtained in a private institution; and in these institutions, as it is well known again, three principal occupations, or subjects, constitute the foundation of female perfections: the French language, as indispensable to conjugal happiness; the pianoforte, as a medium to create some pleasant moments to a husband; and at last, and not least, a general knowledge of household matters: knitting purses, braces, and embroidering generally, for the purpose of exchanging presents.

There are many changes and improvements in various methods of teaching these indispensable branches of human perfections, particularly in the present time; all these, however, depend more or less on the clever or judicious management of the proprietors of these modern and fashionable institutions. In some of these places, the three branches above-named are classed in the following order: first, the piano forte, then the French language, and at last, household knowledge. But in some again it also happens that housekeeping obtains the first rank, i.e., knitting and embroidering of presents; then follows the French language, and the series is concluded most harmoniously by the pianoforte. It is obvious, therefore, that methods of teaching exist in great variety.

It will not be superfluous to observe also that Madame Maniloff—but I think I will stop here with my further remarks, for I must confess I am afraid to speak of ladies; besides, it is high time to return to the gentlemen, who have been already standing for some moments before the door of the reception-room, mutually inviting one another to step in the first.

"Pray do not so much incommode yourself on my account; I shall step in after you," said Tchichikoff.

"No, my dear Pavel Ivanovitch! pray advance; you are my guest," replied Maniloff, pointing civilly with his hand towards the door.

"Do not incommode yourself, I beg you will not. Step before me, if you please," said Tchichikoff.

"No, pardon me, but I shall not suffer such a civil and well-bred guest as you are to follow after me."

"Why, you overwhelm me with civilities! Pray pass on."

"Never mind, do me the favour to walk in first."

"But, my dear Sir, why all these ceremonies?"

"Because—and if you please," said Maniloff again, using now one of his most enticing smiles, whilst continuing his civil gesticulations.

At last, both friends entered the room backwards, at the same time squeezing one another gently against the door.

"Allow me to introduce you to my wife," said Maniloff. "My darling, allow me to introduce to you our friend Pavel Ivanovitch Tchichikoff."

And in truth, Tchichikoff now beheld for the first time a lady, whom he had not observed during the moments that elapsed whilst he was exchanging complimentary gestures with his host. She was pretty, and dressed with taste. The light gris de perle coloured morning capotte became her exceedingly well; her finely-shaped hand was in the act of throwing some needlework hastily upon the table, and snatching up instead a fine batiste pocket-handkerchief with prettily-embroidered corners and initials. She rose slightly from her seat on the sofa, and gracefully welcomed her guest; and Tchichikoff hastened with evident eagerness to kiss her hand in the old Russian fashion.

Madame Maniloff spoke in a slightly affected tone of voice, and assured her guest that he caused them a real pleasure indeed by his arrival, and that her husband had not allowed a day to pass without speaking of him, his friend, continually.

"Yes," added Maniloff, "my wife has already several times inquired after you, and even often said, 'Why does your Petersburg friend not come?' 'Wait a little longer, my darling, he is sure to arrive, for he gave me his promise.' At last, you have been kind enough to gratify us with your presence. Indeed, you cause us quite a delight, as pleasant as a May-day, or 'birth-day of the heart.'"

Tchichikoff, on hearing that his host's exaltation had already attained such a pitch as to call his arrival a gratification as pleasant as a "birth-day of the heart," became a little confused, and answered civilly, and in a dignified tone of voice, that he could not boast of a princely name nor of an exalted position.

"You possess all," Maniloff interrupted, whilst sweetly smiling as usual, "you possess all, and even more.".

"How did you like our town?" added Madame Maniloff. "Have you spent your time pleasantly?"

"A very charming and pleasant town, my lady," answered Tchichikoff, "and I have spent a most agreeable week indeed; I have been in the choicest company."

"And how did you like our Lord-Lieutenant?" Madame Maniloff again inquired.

"Is he not one of the most civil and amiable men in our province?" added, in his turn, Mr. Maniloff.

"That is perfectly true," said Tchichikoff; "he is a highly accomplished and estimable man. How well he knows how to enter into the spirit of his exalted position, and how well he understands all his arduous duties! It is desirable to see many more such men administering our country!"

"And how kind and civil he is in his receptions, and how delicate and condescending in his manners;" Maniloff added again, with a smiling face, whilst satisfaction made him nearly close his eyes, like a cat when gently tickled with the finger behind the ear.

"A very condescending and agreeable man indeed," continued Tchichikoff; "and how clever he is, to be sure! I never anticipated that much of him. How well and tastefully he embroiders various household ornaments! He showed me a purse of his own knitting, and I must confess that I doubt whether a lady could do it much better."

"And the Vice-Governor, is he not an amiable gentleman?" questioned Maniloff, again closing his eyes slightly.

"A very, very deserving man indeed," replied Tchichikoff.

"But allow me to ask you, how did you like the Commissioner of Police? Am I not right in saying he is a very agreeable man?"

"An exceedingly agreeable man, and, at the same time, what a learned, what a well-informed man! I spent an evening at his house, where we played a game at whist with the imperial Procurator and the President of the Courts of Justice: we were assembled till the last cock crowed, and I agree with you, he is indeed a most estimable man."

"And pray, what is your opinion of his wife?" inquired Madame Maniloff. "She is a charming lady?"

"Oh, Madame, she is one of the most worthy ladies with whom I have the honour to be acquainted," replied Tchichikoff with an air of conviction.

After enumerating all these persons in due rotation, and in the manner described, they did not fail to bestow equal praise also upon the President of the Courts of Justice, the Postmaster-General, and, in fact, upon all the higher employés in the town of Smolensk, who, in their opinion, seemed to be one and all the most respectable and praiseworthy persons in the province, if not in the vast Russian Empire.

"And pray, do you spend all your time here in the country?" demanded Tchichikoff, in his turn, at last, and with the evident attempt to change the subject of conversation.

"Mostly here," replied Maniloff. "Sometimes, however, we go to town to spend a day or two and pay a few visits, just for the sake of a little recreation and intercourse with civilized society. One is apt to become boorish from living continually shut up in a country residence."

"True, very true," said Tchichikoff.

"Naturally," continued Maniloff. "It would be a different life if we had some pleasant neighbours, or acquaintance with persons with whom, in some respects, we could have some friendly intercourse and exchange opinions, talk about life and good company, or have an argument on some scientific subject, and thus stir up the dormant spirit, which again, as you well know, would give an impulse—"

Here he intended to express something more, and be if possible more explicit; but finding that he had lost the thread of his own ideas, he began to gesticulate with his hand in the air, and then continued to speak:

"Then of course the country and retirement would have many still more pleasant attractions. But we have no such persons around us. The only recreation we enjoy now and then is a book or a newspaper."

Tchichikoff fully agreed with Maniloff's opinion, and added, "That there can be nothing pleasanter than to live in retirement, to delight in the scenes of nature, and to read now and then a good book as a recreation."

"But allow me to tell you," said Maniloff, "that having no such friend with whom to exchange—"

"Oh, to be sure, that is true indeed!" interrupted Tchichikoff, "for what are all the treasures of this world? 'Care not so much for money as for good connections!' said some clever man somewhere."

"And you know it, Pavel Ivanovitch!" said Maniloff, whilst giving to his face not only more than its usual expression of sweetness, but even, if possible, an expression not unlike the mixture concocted by a clever physician of the world, who mercilessly sweetens his drugs, in the hope of pleasing is patients all the more. "Then, one feels a sensation—or something not unlike the 'heart's rejoicing'—something like that which I feel now, when chance gives me the felicity—nay, allow me to say, the exceptional gratification of seeing you here, and being delighted with your very pleasant conversation—"

"Pray pardon me, but why do you call me and my conversation so pleasant? I am an humble man, and nothing else," replied Tchichikoff, with great humility.

"Oh, my dear Pavel Ivanovitch, allow me to be candid. I would give away the half of my property, if I could possess but the half of the accomplishments that you can boast of."

"On the contrary, I on my part would esteem it as the highest—"

It is impossible to say to what extent the expressions of mutual esteem and admiration would have been carried between the two friends, if the entrance of a servant had not interrupted them, who came to announce that dinner was ready.

"Allow me to invite you to our table," said Maniloff, respectfully.

"You will excuse us, if we cannot ask you to a dinner like those you have been accustomed to partake of in the metropolis: with us all is simplicity—a modest; meal à la Russe, but offered with a candid heart," added Madame Maniloff.

Hereupon the two men had again a slight and polite difference as to who should enter before the other, but at last Tchichikoff entered the dining-room backwards.

[CHAPTER XI.]

On their entrance in the dining-hall, they found Madame Maniloff waiting with her two little sons. These children were of that tender age when parents are induced to seat them already among adults, though they still are accommodated with high stools. Near them stood their teacher who bowed courteously and with a smile.

The lady of the house took her seat before the soup-tureen; her guest was placed between herself and husband; the servant tied a napkin under the chin of the little boys, and the dinner ceremonial commenced.

"What pretty little boys!" said Tchichikoff, after a while, and looking intently at them. "What is their age?"

"The elder is in his eighth year, and the younger celebrated his sixth birth-day yesterday," answered Madame Maniloff, smiling.

"Themistoclus!" said Maniloff, whilst turning towards his elder boy, who was just engaged in liberating his chin from the napkin which the servant bad tied too tightly round his neck. Tchichikoff lifted up his head and frowned slightly when he heard this classic name, of which heaven knows why Maniloff had made the final syllable us; however he recovered immediately from his surprise, and his features reassumed their wonted expression.

"Themistoclus, my boy!" repeated Maniloff, "tell me which is the finest town in France?" Here the teacher directed all the power of his attention upon his pupil thus questioned by his father; and it seemed as if he intended to pierce him with his glance; but he gradually calmed down, and soon after nodded approvingly with his head, when he heard Themistocles give the answer:

"Paris."

"And which is the finest town in Russia?" demanded again Maniloff.

The master fixed his eyes again upon his pupil and frowned.

"St. Petersburg," replied Themistocles, quickly.

"And what town besides?"

"Moscow," again replied the boy with sparkling eyes, for he seemed to be sure of his lesson.

"Now for the last question," said his father, evidently pleased with his child's progresses. "Who are the natural enemies of Russia and of Christendom?"

"The Turks; and we ought to take Constantinople from them," replied Themistocles, with the air of a conqueror, and looking for approval towards his master.