the palm, since all them presented an equal
claim to that honour. Naturally, when, at length, the dossier reached
the Governor-General himself it simply flabbergasted the poor man; and
even the exceptionally clever and energetic secretary to whom he deputed
the making of an abstract of the same very nearly lost his reason with
the strain of attempting to lay hold of the tangled end of the skein. It
happened that just at that time the Prince had several other important
affairs on hand, and affairs of a very unpleasant nature. That is to
say, famine had made its appearance in one portion of the province, and
the tchinovniks sent to distribute food to the people had done their
work badly; in another portion of the province certain Raskolniki [51]
were in a state of ferment, owing to the spreading of a report than
an Antichrist had arisen who would not even let the dead rest, but was
purchasing them wholesale--wherefore the said Raskolniki were summoning
folk to prayer and repentance, and, under cover of capturing the
Antichrist in question, were bludgeoning non-Antichrists in batches;
lastly, the peasants of a third portion of the province had risen
against the local landowners and superintendents of police, for the
reason that certain rascals had started a rumour that the time was come
when the peasants themselves were to become landowners, and to wear
frockcoats, while the landowners in being were about to revert to the
peasant state, and to take their own wares to market; wherefore one of
the local volosts[52], oblivious of the fact that an order of things
of that kind would lead to a superfluity alike of landowners and
of superintendents of police, had refused to pay its taxes, and
necessitated recourse to forcible measures. Hence it was in a mood
of the greatest possible despondency that the poor Prince was sitting
plunged when word was brought to him that the old man who had gone bail
for Chichikov was waiting to see him.

"Show him in," said the Prince; and the old man entered.

"A fine fellow your Chichikov!" began the Prince angrily. "You defended
him, and went bail for him, even though he had been up to business which
even the lowest thief would not have touched!"

"Pardon me, your Highness; I do not understand to what you are
referring."

"I am referring to the matter of the fraudulent will. The fellow ought
to have been given a public flogging for it."

"Although to exculpate Chichikov is not my intention