of the walls, and consorted well with the flowered pitchers painted on the shutters.
Ascending the narrow wooden staircase to the upper floor, and arriving upon a broad landings Chichikov found himself confronted with a creaking door and a stout old woman in a striped print gown. "This way, if you please," she said. Within the apartment designated Chichikov encountered the old friends which one invariably finds in such roadside hostelries—to wit, a hoary samovar, four smooth, bescratched walls of white pine, a three-cornered press with cups and teapots, egg-cups of gilded china standing in front of ikons suspended by blue and red ribands, a cat lately delivered of a family, a mirror which gives one four eyes instead of two and a pancake for face, and, beside the ikons some bunches oi herbs and carnations of such faded dustiness that, should one attempt to smell them, one is bound to burst out sneezing.
"Have you a sucking-pig?" Chichikov inquired of the landlady as she stood expectantly before him.
"Yes."
"And some horse-radish and sour cream?"
"Yes."
"Then serve them."
The landlady departed for the purpose, and returned with a plate, a napkin (the latter starched to the consistency of dried bark), a knife with a bone handle beginning to turn yellow, a two-pronged fork as thin as a wafer, and a salt-cellar incapable of being made to stand upright.
Following the accepted custom, our hero entered into conversation with the woman, and inquired whether she herself or a landlord kept the tavern; how much income the tavern brought in; whether her sons lived with her; whether the eldest was a bachelor or married; whom the eldest had taken to wife; whether the dowry had been large; whether the father-in-law had been satisfied; and whether the said father-in-law had not complained of receiving too small a present at the wedding. In short, Chichikov, touched on every conceivable point. Likewise (of course) he displayed some curiosity as to the landowners of the neighbourhood. Their names, he ascertained, were Blochin, Potchitaev, Milnoi, Cheprakov, and Sobakevitch.
"Then you are acquainted with Sobakevitch?" he said; whereupon the old woman informed him that she knew not only Sobakevitch, but also Manilov, and that the latter was the more delicate eater of the two, since, whereas Manilov always ordered
