be to me. Yet,
in middle age, shall I be able to compass the patience whereof I was
capable in my youth?"

However, no matter how he regarded the future, and no matter from what
point of view he considered his recent acquisition, he could see nothing
but advantage likely to accrue from the bargain. For one thing, he might
be able to proceed so that, first the whole of the estate should be
mortgaged, and then the better portions of land sold outright. Or he
might so contrive matters as to manage the property for a while
(and thus become a landowner like Kostanzhoglo, whose advice, as his
neighbour and his benefactor, he intended always to follow), and then to
dispose of the property by private treaty (provided he did not wish to
continue his ownership), and still to retain in his hands the dead and
abandoned souls. And another possible coup occurred to his mind. That is
to say, he might contrive to withdraw from the district without having
repaid Kostanzhoglo at all! Truly a splendid idea! Yet it is only fair
to say that the idea was not one of Chichikov's own conception. Rather,
it had presented itself--mocking, laughing, and winking--unbidden. Yet
the impudent, the wanton thing! Who is the procreator of suddenly
born ideas of the kind? The thought that he was now a real, an actual,
proprietor instead of a fictitious--that he was now a proprietor of real
land, real rights of timber and pasture, and real serfs who existed not
only in the imagination, but also in veritable actuality--greatly elated
our hero. So he took to dancing up and down in his seat, to rubbing
his hands together, to winking at himself, to holding his fist,
trumpet-wise, to his mouth (while making believe to execute a march),
and even to uttering aloud such encouraging nicknames and phrases as
"bulldog" and "little fat capon." Then suddenly recollecting that he
was not alone, he hastened to moderate his behaviour and endeavoured to
stifle the endless flow of his good spirits; with the result that when
Platon, mistaking certain sounds for utterances addressed to himself,
inquired what his companion had said, the latter retained the presence
of mind to reply "Nothing."

Presently, as Chichikov gazed about him, he saw that for some time past
the koliaska had been skirting a beautiful wood, and that on either side
the road was bordered with an edging of birch trees, the tenderly-green,
recently-opened leaves of which caused their tall, slender trunks to