fellow and you will see that it is Ivan Petrovitch. "Alack, alack!" will be the only remark that you can make.
Let us return to our characters in real life. We have seen that, on this occasion, Chichikov decided to dispense with ceremony; wherefore, taking up the teapot, he went on as follows:
"You have a nice little village here, madam. How many souls does it contain?"
"A little less than eighty, dear sir. But the times are hard, and I have lost a great deal through last year's harvest having proved a failure."
"But your peasants look fine, strong fellows. May I enquire your name? Through arriving so late at night I have quite lost my wits."
"Korobotchka, the widow of a Collegiate Secretary."
"I humbly thank you. And your Christian name and patronymic?"
"Nastasia Petrovna."
"Nastasia Petrovna! Those are excellent names. I have a maternal aunt named like yourself."
"And your name? " queried the lady. "May I take it that you are a Government Assessor?"
"No, madam," replied Chichikov with a smile. "I am not an Assessor, but a traveller on private business."
"Then you must be a buyer of produce? How I regret that I have sold my honey so cheaply to other buyers! Otherwise you might have bought it, dear sir."
"I never buy honey."
"Then what do you buy, pray? Hemp? I have a little of that by me, but not more than half a pood[1] or so."
"No, madam. It is in other wares that I deal. Tell me, have you, of late years, lost many of your peasants by death? "
"Yes; no fewer than eighteen," responded the old lady with a sigh. "Such a fine lot, too—all good workers! True, others have since grown up, but of what use are they? Mere striplings. When the Assessor last called upon me I could have wept; for, though those workmen of mine are dead, I have to keep on paying for them as though they were still alive! And only last week my blacksmith got burnt to death! Such a clever hand at his trade he was!"
"What? A fire occurred at your place?"
"No, no, God preserve us all! It was not so bad as that. You
- ↑ Forty Russian pounds.
