Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol2.djvu/117

and was all vinegar at once when he turned to his inferiors. 'I could forgive him,' said Tyentyetnikov, 'if the change did not take place so quickly in his face: but on the spot, before my eyes, he is sugar and vinegar all in a minute!' From that time forward he began to watch him at every step. He fancied that Fyodor Fyodorovitch stood on his dignity to excess, that he had all the ways of petty Jacks-in-office, that he noticed unfavourably all those who did not come to pay their respects on holidays, and that he even revenged himself on those whose names did not appear on the list of visitors kept by his porter, and a number of other shortcomings from which no man good or bad is entirely free. He felt a nervous aversion for him. Some evil spirit prompted him to do something unpleasant to Fyodor Fyodorovitch. He sought an opportunity for doing this with peculiar satisfaction and succeeded in finding one. On one occasion he spoke so rudely to him that a message was sent him from the higher authorities that he must either beg his pardon or leave the service. He sent in his resignation. His uncle, the actual civil councillor, came to him, imploring and panic-stricken: 'For Christ's sake, upon my word, Andrey Ivanovitch, what's this you have been about? To throw up a career after such a good beginning, just because your chief isn't quite to your liking! What do you mean by it? Why, with that way of looking at things there would be no one left in the service. Think better of it,