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horse. But what are YOU shaking your ears for? You are a fool, so
just mind when you're spoken to. 'Tis good advice I'm giving you, you
blockhead. Ah! You CAN travel when you like." And he gave the animal
another cut, and then shouted to the trio, "Gee up, my beauties!" and
drew his whip gently across the backs of the skewbald's comrades--not
as a punishment, but as a sign of his approval. That done, he
addressed himself to the skewbald again.

"Do you think," he cried, "that I don't see what you are doing? You
can behave quite decently when you like, and make a man respect you."

With that he fell to recalling certain reminiscences.

"They were NICE folk, those folk at the gentleman's yonder," he
mused. "I DO love a chat with a man when he is a good sort. With a
man of that kind I am always hail-fellow-well-met, and glad to drink a
glass of tea with him, or to eat a biscuit. One CAN'T help
respecting a decent fellow. For instance, this gentleman of mine--why,
every one looks up to him, for he has been in the Government's
service, and is a Collegiate Councillor."

Thus soliloquising, he passed to more remote abstractions; until, had
Chichikov been listening, he would have learnt a number of interesting
details concerning himself. However, his thoughts were wholly occupied
with his own subject, so much so that not until a loud clap of thunder
awoke him from his reverie did he glance around him. The sky was
completely covered with clouds, and the dusty turnpike beginning to be
sprinkled with drops of rain. At length a second and a nearer and a
louder peal resounded, and the rain descended as from a bucket.
Falling slantwise, it beat upon one side of the basketwork of the tilt
until the splashings began to spurt into his face, and he found
himself forced to draw the curtains (fitted with circular openings
through which to obtain a glimpse of the wayside view), and to shout
to Selifan to quicken his pace. Upon that the coachman, interrupted in
the middle of his harangue, bethought him that no time was to be lost;
wherefore, extracting from under the box-seat a piece of old blanket,
he covered over his sleeves, resumed the reins, and cheered on his
threefold team (which, it may be said, had so completely succumbed to
the influence of the pleasant lassitude induced by Selifan's discourse
that it had taken to scarcely placing one leg before the other).
Unfortunately, Selifan could not clearly remember whether two turnings
had been passed or three. Indeed, on collecting his faculties, and
dimly recalling the lie of the road, he became filled with a shrewd
suspicion that A VERY LARGE NUMBER of turnings had been passed. But
since, at moments which call for a hasty decision, a Russian is quick
to discover what may conceivably be the best course to take, our
coachman put away from him all ulterior reasoning, and, turning to the
right at the next cross-road, shouted, "Hi, my beauties!" and set off
at a gallop. Never for a moment did he stop to think whither the road

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