broad with a flourish of the
eau-de-Cologne-scented handkerchief.

By this time the reader will have guessed that the visitor was none
other than our old and respected friend Paul Ivanovitch Chichikov.
Naturally, time had not spared him his share of anxieties and alarms;
wherefore his exterior had come to look a trifle more elderly, his
frockcoat had taken on a suggestion of shabbiness, and britchka,
coachman, valet, horses, and harness alike had about them a sort of
second-hand, worse-for-wear effect. Evidently the Chichikovian finances
were not in the most flourishing of conditions. Nevertheless, the old
expression of face, the old air of breeding and refinement, remained
unimpaired, and our hero had even improved in the art of walking and
turning with grace, and of dexterously crossing one leg over the
other when taking a seat. Also, his mildness of diction, his discreet
moderation of word and phrase, survived in, if anything, increased
measure, and he bore himself with a skill which caused his tactfulness
to surpass itself in sureness of aplomb. And all these accomplishments
had their effect further heightened by a snowy immaculateness of collar
and dickey, and an absence of dust from his frockcoat, as complete as
though he had just arrived to attend a nameday festival. Lastly, his
cheeks and chin were of such neat clean-shavenness that no one but a
blind man could have failed to admire their rounded contours.

From that moment onwards great changes took place in Tientietnikov's
establishment, and certain of its rooms assumed an unwonted air of
cleanliness and order. The rooms in question were those assigned to
Chichikov, while one other apartment--a little front chamber opening
into the hall--became permeated with Petrushka's own peculiar smell.
But this lasted only for a little while, for presently Petrushka was
transferred to the servants' quarters, a course which ought to have been
adopted in the first instance.

During the initial days of Chichikov's sojourn, Tientietnikov feared
rather to lose his independence, inasmuch as he thought that his
guest might hamper his movements, and bring about alterations in the
established routine of the place. But these fears proved groundless, for
Paul Ivanovitch displayed an extraordinary aptitude for accommodating
himself to his new position. To begin with, he encouraged his host
in his philosophical inertia by saying that the latter would help
Tientietnikov to become a