as the said Director was a military
man, he was not fully acquainted with the myriad subtleties of the
civilian mind; wherefore it was not long before, by dint of maintaining
a discreet exterior, added to a faculty for humouring all and sundry,
a fresh gang of tchinovniks succeeded in restoring him to mildness, and
the General found himself in the hands of greater thieves than before,
but thieves whom he did not even suspect, seeing that he believed
himself to have selected men fit and proper, and even ventured to
boast of possessing a keen eye for talent. In a trice the tchinovniks
concerned appraised his spirit and character; with the result that the
entire sphere over which he ruled became an agency for the detection of
irregularities. Everywhere, and in every case, were those irregularities
pursued as a fisherman pursues a fat sturgeon with a gaff; and to such
an extent did the sport prove successful that almost in no time each
participator in the hunt was seen to be in possession of several
thousand roubles of capital. Upon that a large number of the former band
of tchinovniks also became converted to paths of rectitude, and were
allowed to re-enter the Service; but not by hook or by crook could
Chichikov worm his way back, even though, incited thereto by sundry
items of paper currency, the General's first secretary and principal
bear leader did all he could on our hero's behalf. It seemed that the
General was the kind of man who, though easily led by the nose (provided
it was done without his knowledge) no sooner got an idea into his head
than it stuck there like a nail, and could not possibly be extracted;
and all that the wily secretary succeeded in procuring was the tearing
up of a certain dirty fragment of paper--even that being effected only
by an appeal to the General's compassion, on the score of the unhappy
fate which, otherwise, would befall Chichikov's wife and children (who,
luckily, had no existence in fact).

"Well," said Chichikov to himself, "I have done my best, and now
everything has failed. Lamenting my misfortune won't help me, but only
action." And with that he decided to begin his career anew, and once
more to arm himself with the weapons of patience and self-denial. The
better to effect this, he had, of course to remove to another town. Yet
somehow, for a while, things miscarried. More than once he found himself
forced to exchange one post for another, and at the briefest of notice;
and all o