this
occasion, Chichikov decided to dispense with ceremony; wherefore, taking
up the teapot, he went on as follows:

"You have a nice little village here, madam. How many souls does it
contain?"

"A little less than eighty, dear sir. But the times are hard, and I have
lost a great deal through last year's harvest having proved a failure."

"But your peasants look fine, strong fellows. May I enquire your name?
Through arriving so late at night I have quite lost my wits."

"Korobotchka, the widow of a Collegiate Secretary."

"I humbly thank you. And your Christian name and patronymic?"

"Nastasia Petrovna."

"Nastasia Petrovna! Those are excellent names. I have a maternal aunt
named like yourself."

"And YOUR name?" queried the lady. "May I take it that you are a
Government Assessor?"

"No, madam," replied Chichikov with a smile. "I am not an Assessor, but
a traveller on private business."

"Then you must be a buyer of produce? How I regret that I have sold my
honey so cheaply to other buyers! Otherwise YOU might have bought it,
dear sir."

"I never buy honey."

"Then WHAT do you buy, pray? Hemp? I have a little of that by me, but
not more than half a pood [16] or so."

"No, madam. It is in other wares that I deal. Tell me, have you, of late
years, lost many of your peasants by death?"

"Yes; no fewer than eighteen," responded the old lady with a sigh. "Such
a fine lot, too--all good workers! True, others have since grown up,
but of what use are THEY? Mere striplings. When the Assessor last called
upon me I could have wept; for, though those workmen of mine are dead,
I have to keep on paying for them as though they were still alive! And
only last week my blacksmith got burnt to death! Such a clever hand at
his trade he was!"

"What? A fire occurred at your place?"

"No, no, God preserve us all! It was not so bad as that. You must
understand that the blacksmith SET HIMSELF on fire--he got set on fire
in his bowels through overdrinking. Yes, all of a sudden there burst
from him a blue flame, and he smouldered and smouldered until he had
turned as black as a piece of charcoal! Yet what a clever blacksmith he
was! And now I have no horses to drive out with, for there is no one to
shoe them."

"In everything the will of God, madam," said Chichikov with a sigh.
"Against the divine wisdom it is not for us to rebel. Pray hand them
over to me, Nastasia Petrovna."

"Hand over whom?"

"The dead peasants."