rev?"

"Your hopes are vain. It is to my house, not to his, that you have come;
and I am Peter Petrovitch Pietukh--yes, Peter Petrovitch Pietukh."

Chichikov, dumbfounded, turned to Selifan and Petrushka.

"What do you mean?" he exclaimed. "I told you to drive to the house
of Colonel Koshkarev, whereas you have brought me to that of Peter
Petrovitch Pietukh."

"All the same, your fellows have done quite right," put in the gentleman
referred to. "Do you" (this to Selifan and Petrushka) "go to the
kitchen, where they will give you a glassful of vodka apiece. Then put
up the horses, and be off to the servants' quarters."

"I regret the mistake extremely," said Chichikov.

"But it is not a mistake. When you have tried the dinner which I have in
store for you, just see whether you think IT a mistake. Enter, I beg of
you." And, taking Chichikov by the arm, the host conducted him within,
where they were met by a couple of youths.

"Let me introduce my two sons, home for their holidays from the
Gymnasium [43]," said Pietukh. "Nikolasha, come and entertain our
good visitor, while you, Aleksasha, follow me." And with that the host
disappeared.

Chichikov turned to Nikolasha, whom he found to be a budding man about
town, since at first he opened a conversation by stating that, as no
good was to be derived from studying at a provincial institution, he and
his brother desired to remove, rather, to St. Petersburg, the provinces
not being worth living in.

"I quite understand," Chichikov thought to himself. "The end of the
chapter will be confectioners' assistants and the boulevards."

"Tell me," he added aloud, "how does your father's property at present
stand?"

"It is all mortgaged," put in the father himself as he re-entered the
room. "Yes, it is all mortgaged, every bit of it."

"What a pity!" thought Chichikov. "At this rate it will not be long
before this man has no property at all left. I must hurry my departure."
Aloud he said with an air of sympathy: "That you have mortgaged the
estate seems to me a matter of regret."

"No, not at all," replied Pietukh. "In fact, they tell me that it is a
good thing to do, and that every one else is doing it. Why should I act
differently from my neighbours? Moreover, I have had enough of living
here, and should like to try Moscow--more especially since my sons are
always begging me to give them a metropolitan education."

"Oh, the fool, the fool!" reflected Chichikov. "He is