Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol1.djvu/42

neither flesh, fowl, nor good red herring, as the saying is. Possibly Manilov must be included in their number. In appearance, he was good-looking; the features of his countenance were rather agreeable, but in that agreeableness there was an overdose of sugar; in his deportment and manners there was something that betrayed an anxiety to win goodwill and friendship. He smiled ingratiatingly, he had fair hair and blue eyes. At the first moment of conversation with him one could not but say, 'What a kind and agreeable man!' The next minute one would say nothing, and the third minute one would say, 'What the devil is one to make of it?' and would walk away; if one did not walk away one would be aware of a deadly boredom. You would never hear from him a hasty or even over-eager word, such as you may hear from almost any one if you touch on a subject that upsets him. Every one has his weak spot: in one man it takes the form of hounds, another imagines that he is a great amateur of music and has a wonderful feeling for its inmost depths; a third is proud of his feats at the dining-table. A fourth is for playing a part if only one inch higher than that allotted him by fate; a fifth with more limited aspirations, dreams waking and sleeping of being seen on the promenade with a court adjutant to the admiration of his friends and acquaintances, and of strangers, too, indeed; a sixth is endowed with a hand which feels a supernatural prompting to turn down the corner of an ace of diamonds or of a two, while a