Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol2.djvu/20

a count's, a cambric collar, like some fat, overfed pug dog. … My Kopeykin dragged himself somehow on his wooden leg to the reception room, squeezed himself into a corner for fear he might jerk his elbow against some American or Indian, only fancy, gilt china vase of some sort. Well, I need hardly say he had to wait till he had had enough, for he arrived at the hour when the chief was, in a manner of speaking, just getting out of bed, and his valet had just brought him a silver basin for washing and all that, don't you know. My Kopeykin waits for four hours, and then the clerk on duty comes in and says: "The director will be here directly." And the room was full up by then with epaulettes and shoulder knots, as many people as beans on a plate. At last, my good sir, the director comes in. Well … Can you imagine … the director! In his face, so to say … well in keeping, you understand, … with his position and his rank … such an expression, you know. He had a tip-top manner in every way; he goes up first to one and then to another: "What have you come about? What do you want? What is your business?" At last, my good sir, he goes up to Kopeykin. Kopeykin says one thing and another. "I have shed my blood, I have lost my arms and legs, I can't work—I make bold to ask, will there not be some assistance, some sort of an arrangement in regard to compensation, so to speak, a pension or something," you understand. The director sees that the man has got a wooden leg and that his right