Yarb. This caused Kostanzhoglo to realise that
bedtime really had arrived; wherefore, after he had shaken Platon out
of his slumbers, and bidden Chichikov good night, all dispersed to their
several chambers, and became plunged in sleep.

All, that is to say, except Chichikov, whose thoughts remained wakeful,
and who kept wondering and wondering how best he could become the owner,
not of a fictitious, but of a real, estate. The conversation with
his host had made everything clear, had made the possibility of
his acquiring riches manifest, had made the difficult art of estate
management at once easy and understandable; until it would seem as
though particularly was his nature adapted for mastering the art in
question. All that he would need to do would be to mortgage the dead
souls, and then to set up a genuine establishment. Already he
saw himself acting and administering as Kostanzhoglo had advised
him--energetically, and through personal oversight, and undertaking
nothing new until the old had been thoroughly learned, and viewing
everything with his own eyes, and making himself familiar with each
member of his peasantry, and abjuring all superfluities, and giving
himself up to hard work and husbandry. Yes, already could he taste the
pleasure which would be his when he had built up a complete industrial
organisation, and the springs of the industrial machine were in vigorous
working order, and each had become able to reinforce the other. Labour
should be kept in active operation, and, even as, in a mill, flour comes
flowing from grain, so should cash, and yet more cash, come flowing from
every atom of refuse and remnant. And all the while he could see before
him the landowner who was one of the leading men in Russia, and for whom
he had conceived such an unbounded respect. Hitherto only for rank or
for opulence had Chichikov respected a man--never for mere intellectual
power; but now he made a first exception in favour of Kostanzhoglo,
seeing that he felt that nothing undertaken by his host could possibly
come to naught. And another project which was occupying Chichikov's mind
was the project of purchasing the estate of a certain landowner named
Khlobuev. Already Chichikov had at his disposal ten thousand roubles,
and a further fifteen thousand he would try and borrow of Kostanzhoglo
(seeing that the latter had himself said that he was prepared to help
any one who really desired to grow rich); while, as for the remainde