hat freshness in the air, what singing of birds in the gardens of the
mansion, what general joy and rapture and exaltation! Particularly in
the village might the shouting and singing have been in honour of a
wedding!

Chichikov walked hither, thither, and everywhere--a pursuit for which
there was ample choice and facility. At one time he would direct his
steps along the edge of the flat tableland, and contemplate the depths
below, where still there lay sheets of water left by the floods of
winter, and where the island-like patches of forest showed leafless
boughs; while at another time he would plunge into the thicket and
ravine country, where nests of birds weighted branches almost to the
ground, and the sky was darkened with the criss-cross flight of cawing
rooks. Again, the drier portions of the meadows could be crossed to the
river wharves, whence the first barges were just beginning to set forth
with pea-meal and barley and wheat, while at the same time one's ear
would be caught with the sound of some mill resuming its functions as
once more the water turned the wheel. Chichikov would also walk afield
to watch the early tillage operations of the season, and observe how
the blackness of a new furrow would make its way across the expanse of
green, and how the sower, rhythmically striking his hand against the
pannier slung across his breast, would scatter his fistfuls of seed with
equal distribution, apportioning not a grain too much to one side or to
the other.

In fact, Chichikov went everywhere. He chatted and talked, now with the
bailiff, now with a peasant, now with a miller, and inquired into the
manner and nature of everything, and sought information as to how an
estate was managed, and at what price corn was selling, and what species
of grain was best for spring and autumn grinding, and what was the name
of each peasant, and who were his kinsfolk, and where he had bought his
cow, and what he fed his pigs on. Chichikov also made inquiry concerning
the number of peasants who had lately died: but of these there appeared
to be few. And suddenly his quick eye discerned that Tientietnikov's
estate was not being worked as it might have been--that much neglect and
listlessness and pilfering and drunkenness was abroad; and on perceiving
this, he thought to himself: "What a fool is that Tientietnikov! To
think of letting a property like this decay when he might be drawing
from it an income of fifty thousand roubles a y