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Also, long after Nozdrev had ceased to turn the handle, one
particularly shrill-pitched pipe which had, throughout, refused to
harmonise with the rest kept up a protracted whistling on its own
account. Then followed an exhibition of tobacco pipes--pipes of clay,
of wood, of meerschaum, pipes smoked and non-smoked; pipes wrapped in
chamois leather and not so wrapped; an amber-mounted hookah (a stake
won at cards) and a tobacco pouch (worked, it was alleged, by some
countess who had fallen in love with Nozdrev at a posthouse, and whose
handiwork Nozdrev averred to constitute the "sublimity of
superfluity"--a term which, in the Nozdrevian vocabulary, purported to
signify the acme of perfection).
[2] That is to say, a distinctively Russian name.
Finally, after some hors-d'oeuvres of sturgeon's back, they sat down
to table--the time being then nearly five o'clock. But the meal did
not constitute by any means the best of which Chichikov had ever
partaken, seeing that some of the dishes were overcooked, and others
were scarcely cooked at all. Evidently their compounder had trusted
chiefly to inspiration--she had laid hold of the first thing which had
happened to come to hand. For instance, had pepper represented the
nearest article within reach, she had added pepper wholesale. Had a
cabbage chanced to be so encountered, she had pressed it also into the
service. And the same with milk, bacon, and peas. In short, her rule
seemed to have been "Make a hot dish of some sort, and some sort of
taste will result." For the rest, Nozdrev drew heavily upon the wine.
Even before the soup had been served, he had poured out for each guest
a bumper of port and another of "haut" sauterne. (Never in provincial
towns is ordinary, vulgar sauterne even procurable.) Next, he called
for a bottle of madeira--"as fine a tipple as ever a field-marshall
drank"; but the madeira only burnt the mouth, since the dealers,
familiar with the taste of our landed gentry (who love "good" madeira)
invariably doctor the stuff with copious dashes of rum and Imperial
vodka, in the hope that Russian stomachs will thus be enabled to carry
off the lot. After this bottle Nozdrev called for another and "a very
special" brand--a brand which he declared to consist of a blend of
burgundy and champagne, and of which he poured generous measures into
the glasses of Chichikov and the brother-in-law as they sat to right
and left of him. But since Chichikov noticed that, after doing so, he
added only a scanty modicum of the mixture to his own tumbler, our
hero determined to be cautious, and therefore took advantage of a
moment when Nozdrev had again plunged into conversation and was yet a
third time engaged in refilling his brother-in-law's glass, to
contrive to upset his (Chichikov's) glass over his plate. In time
there came also to table a tart of mountain-ashberries--berries which
the host declared to equal, in taste, ripe plums, but which, curiously
enough, smacked more of corn brandy.
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