ze at the interior of the
mansion inhabited by the man who received an annual income of two
hundred thousand roubles; for he thought to discern therefrom the nature
of its proprietor, even as from a shell one may deduce the species of
oyster or snail which has been its tenant, and has left therein its
impression. But no such conclusions were to be drawn. The rooms were
simple, and even bare. Not a fresco nor a picture nor a bronze nor a
flower nor a china what-not nor a book was there to be seen. In short,
everything appeared to show that the proprietor of this abode spent the
greater part of his time, not between four walls, but in the field, and
that he thought out his plans, not in sybaritic fashion by the fireside,
nor in an easy chair beside the stove, but on the spot where work was
actually in progress--that, in a word, where those plans were conceived,
there they were put into execution. Nor in these rooms could Chichikov
detect the least trace of a feminine hand, beyond the fact that
certain tables and chairs bore drying-boards whereon were arranged some
sprinklings of flower petals.

"What is all this rubbish for?" asked Platon.

"It is not rubbish," replied the lady of the house. "On the contrary, it
is the best possible remedy for fever. Last year we cured every one of
our sick peasants with it. Some of the petals I am going to make into an
ointment, and some into an infusion. You may laugh as much as you like
at my potting and preserving, yet you yourself will be glad of things of
the kind when you set out on your travels."

Platon moved to the piano, and began to pick out a note or two.

"Good Lord, what an ancient instrument!" he exclaimed. "Are you not
ashamed of it, sister?"

"Well, the truth is that I get no time to practice my music. You see,"
she added to Chichikov, "I have an eight-year-old daughter to educate;
and to hand her over to a foreign governess in order that I may have
leisure for my own piano-playing--well, that is a thing which I could
never bring myself to do."

"You have become a wearisome sort of person," commented Platon, and
walked away to the window. "Ah, here comes Constantine," presently he
added.

Chichikov also glanced out of the window, and saw approaching the
verandah a brisk, swarthy-complexioned man of about forty, a man clad in
a rough cloth jacket and a velveteen cap. Evidently he was one of those
who care little for the niceties of dress. With him, bareheaded, the