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General are likely to treat Chichikov with studied
negligence—and to an author studied negligence spells death.
    However, in spite of the distressfulness of the foregoing
possibilities, it is time that I returned to my hero. After issuing,
overnight, the necessary orders, he awoke early, washed himself,
rubbed himself from head to foot with a wet sponge (a performance
executed only on Sundays—and the day in question happened to be a
Sunday), shaved his face with such care that his cheeks issued of
absolutely satin-like smoothness and polish, donned first his
bilberry-coloured, spotted frockcoat, and then his bearskin overcoat,
descended the staircase (attended, throughout, by the waiter) and
entered his britchka. With a loud rattle the vehicle left the
inn-yard, and issued into the street. A passing priest doffed his cap,
and a few urchins in grimy shirts shouted, "Gentleman, please give a
poor orphan a trifle!" Presently the driver noticed that a sturdy
young rascal was on the point of climbing onto the splashboard;
wherefore he cracked his whip and the britchka leapt forward with
increased speed over the cobblestones. At last, with a feeling of
relief, the travellers caught sight of macadam ahead, which promised
an end both to the cobblestones and to sundry other annoyances. And,
sure enough, after his head had been bumped a few more times against
the boot of the conveyance, Chichikov found himself bowling over
softer ground. On the town receding into the distance, the sides of
the road began to be varied with the usual hillocks, fir trees, clumps
of young pine, trees with old, scarred trunks, bushes of wild juniper,
and so forth, Presently there came into view also strings of country
villas which, with their carved supports and grey roofs (the latter
looking like pendent, embroidered tablecloths), resembled, rather,
bundles of old faggots. Likewise the customary peasants, dressed in
sheepskin jackets, could be seen yawning on benches before their huts,
while their womenfolk, fat of feature and swathed of bosom, gazed out
of upper windows, and the windows below displayed, here a peering
calf, and there the unsightly jaws of a pig. In short, the view was
one of the familiar type. After passing the fifteenth verst-stone
Chichikov suddenly recollected that, according to Manilov, fifteen
versts was the exact distance between his country house and the town;
but the sixteenth verst stone flew by, and the said country house was
still nowhere to be seen. In fact, but for the circumstance that the
travellers happened to encounter a couple of peasants, they would have
come on their errand in vain. To a query as to whether the country
house known as Zamanilovka was anywhere in the neighbourhood the
peasants replied by doffing their caps; after which one of them who
seemed to boast of a little more intelligence than his companion, and
who wore a wedge-shaped beard, made answer:
    "Perhaps you mean Manilovka—not ZAmanilovka?"
    "Yes, yes—Manilovka."
    "Manilovka, eh? Well, you must continue for another verst, and then
you will see it straight before you, on the right."
    "On the right?" re-echoed the coachman.
    "Yes, on the right," affirmed the peasant. "You are on the proper road
for Manilovka, but ZAmanilovka—well, there is no such place. The
house you mean is called Manilovka because Manilovka is its name; but
no house at all is called ZAmanilovka. The house you mean stands
there, on that hill, and is a stone house in which a gentleman lives,
and its name is Manilovka; but ZAmanilovka does not stand
hereabouts, nor ever has stood."
    So the travellers proceeded in search of Manilovka, and, after driving
an additional two versts, arrived at a spot whence there branched off
a by-road. Yet two, three, or four versts of the by-road had been
covered before they saw the least sign of a two-storied stone mansion.
Then it was that Chichikov suddenly recollected that, when a friend
has invited one to visit his country house, and has said