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Yet,
despite the fact that the springs and the thread of this romance will
not DEPEND upon them, but only touch upon them, and occasionally
include them, the author has a passion for circumstantiality, and,
like the average Russian, such a desire for accuracy as even a German
could not rival. To what the reader already knows concerning the
personages in hand it is therefore necessary to add that Petrushka
usually wore a cast-off brown jacket of a size too large for him, as
also that he had (according to the custom of individuals of his
calling) a pair of thick lips and a very prominent nose. In
temperament he was taciturn rather than loquacious, and he cherished a
yearning for self-education. That is to say, he loved to read books,
even though their contents came alike to him whether they were books
of heroic adventure or mere grammars or liturgical compendia. As I
say, he perused every book with an equal amount of attention, and, had
he been offered a work on chemistry, would have accepted that also.
Not the words which he read, but the mere solace derived from the act
of reading, was what especially pleased his mind; even though at any
moment there might launch itself from the page some devil-sent word
whereof he could make neither head nor tail. For the most part, his
task of reading was performed in a recumbent position in the anteroom;
which circumstance ended by causing his mattress to become as ragged
and as thin as a wafer. In addition to his love of poring over books,
he could boast of two habits which constituted two other essential
features of his character--namely, a habit of retiring to rest in his
clothes (that is to say, in the brown jacket above-mentioned) and a
habit of everywhere bearing with him his own peculiar atmosphere, his
own peculiar smell--a smell which filled any lodging with such
subtlety that he needed but to make up his bed anywhere, even in a
room hitherto untenanted, and to drag thither his greatcoat and other
impedimenta, for that room at once to assume an air of having been
lived in during the past ten years. Nevertheless, though a fastidious,
and even an irritable, man, Chichikov would merely frown when his nose
caught this smell amid the freshness of the morning, and exclaim with
a toss of his head: "The devil only knows what is up with you! Surely
you sweat a good deal, do you not? The best thing you can do is to go
and take a bath." To this Petrushka would make no reply, but,
approaching, brush in hand, the spot where his master's coat would be
pendent, or starting to arrange one and another article in order,
would strive to seem wholly immersed in his work. Yet of what was he
thinking as he remained thus silent? Perhaps he was saying to himself:
"My master is a good fellow, but for him to keep on saying the same
thing forty times over is a little wearisome." Only God knows and sees
all things; wherefore for a mere human being to know what is in the
mind of a servant while his master is scolding him is wholly

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