Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol1.djvu/78

a third was trying to settle on his eye; one who had had the indiscretion to settle close to his nostril he had in his sleep drawn up into his nose, which set him sneezing violently—the circumstance which caused him to wake up. Looking about the room he noticed now that the pictures were not all of birds: among them hung a portrait of Kutuzov, and an old gentleman painted in oils with red revers on his uniform as worn in the reign of Paul I. The clock again emitted a hissing sound and struck ten: a woman's face peeped in at the door, and instantly withdrew seeing that Tchitchikov had flung off absolutely everything to sleep more at his ease. The face that peeped in seemed to him somehow familiar. He began trying to recall who it was and at last remembered that it was the mistress of the house. He put on his shirt; his clothes, dried and brushed, were lying beside him. After dressing he went up to the looking-glass and sneezed again so loudly that a turkey-cock who had come up to the window at that moment—the window was very near the ground—gabbled something very quickly to him in his queer language, probably 'God bless you,' on which Tchitchikov called him a fool. Going to the window he scrutinised the view before him; the window might be said to look into the poultry yard. At least the narrow little yard that lay before him was filled with fowls and domestic animals of all sorts. There were turkeys and hens beyond all reckoning; among them a cock was strutting about with measured steps, shaking his