'He is mean and disgusting as well as empty-headed,' Ulinka put in hastily. 'Any one who could treat his brothers as he did and turn his own sister out of the house is a disgusting person.'
'But that is only talk.'
'People wouldn't talk for nothing. You are kindness itself, papa, and no one has such a heart, but sometimes you do things that might make any one believe the opposite. You will welcome a man though you know he is bad just because he has the gift of the gab and knows how to get round you.'
'My love, I could not kick him out,' said the general.
'No need to kick him out, but why like him?'
'Well, your Excellency,' said Tchitchikov to Ulinka, with a slight inclination of his head and an agreeable smile, 'as Christians it is just those we ought to love,' and then turning to the general, he said smiling, this time rather slily, 'Did you ever hear, your Excellency, of the saying—"Love us dirty, for any one will love us clean"?'
'have never heard it.'
'It is a very interesting anecdote,' said Tchitchikov, with a sly smile. 'On the estate, your Excellency, of Prince Gukzovsky, whom no doubt your Excellency knows …'
'I don't know him.'
'… There was a steward, your Excellency, a young man and a German. He had to go to the town about the levy of recruits and other business, and of course he had to grease the
