dred roubles," and the other "about eight hundred." The
brother-in-law inspected the articles in question, and then shook
his head as before. Next, the visitors were shown some "real Turkish"
daggers, of which one bore the inadvertent inscription, "Saveli
Sibiriakov [19], Master Cutler." Then came a barrel-organ, on which
Nozdrev started to play some tune or another. For a while the sounds
were not wholly unpleasing, but suddenly something seemed to go wrong,
for a mazurka started, to be followed by "Marlborough has gone to the
war," and to this, again, there succeeded an antiquated waltz. 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).

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