Our hero now, in his turn, peeped through an aperture of the door through which the old lady had popped her head a quarter of an hour before, and perceiving her sitting before a small tea table, he entered the room in a cheerful and flattering manner.

"Good morning, my dear Sir; how have you passed the night?" said the old lady whilst slightly rising from her seat. She was better dressed than on the previous night; she wore a black silk dress, and no longer had the nightcap on her head, but still there was something twisted round her neck.

"Very well, very well indeed," answered Tchichikoff, seating himself in an arm-chair. "And how did you sleep, my dear Madam?"

"Not at all, my good Sir."

"And pray, what was the reason?"

"Indeed, I passed a sleepless night. My back and spine cause me great pain, and my foot all above the ancle, the higher up the leg, the more I suffer."

"It will pass over, I am sure it will, my dear good lady. Do not take so much notice."

"I pray to God, it would pass over. I continually use some bears\' grease, as well as friction, with turpentine. But allow me to ask you, what would you like to take with your tea? I have some very good cherry-brandy in this small decanter."

"That will be very nice, my good lady, for I am very fond of cherry-brandy."

My intelligent reader will already have observed, that Tchichikoff, though polite, spoke nevertheless, with a rather civil familiarity, when compared to his manners at Maniloff\'s house, in fact he stood on no ceremony with the old lady, and made himself comfortable. Here I might also be allowed to make the observation, that we other Russians, though we might not, and cannot in many things rival our more western friends, yet in what term the good manners and behaviour, we have outdone by far the most civilized nations. It is quite impossible to enumerate all the numerous shades and finesses of our good manners. An Englishman or a Frenchman can impossibly form an idea or understand all the peculiarities and differences in our Russian conduct. Englishmen or Frenchmen will speak with pretty nearly the same tone of voice and courtesy to a millionaire as they would employ to a greengrocer, though within themselves they would or might give a decided preference to the former.

But with us it is not so. We can boast of many clever persons who would speak quite differently to a landed proprietor possessing two hundred serfs than to one who owns three hundred peasants; and with him who owns three hundred they would again not talk in the same tone of voice as with the owner of five hundred; and with the proprietor who owns five hundred again not so as with the owner of eight hundred; in a word, you may increase by degrees the ownership to a million, and you may yet depend upon still meeting with shades of differences in their tone of voice as well as manners.

Let us suppose for a moment that we enter one of the numerous imperial offices established for the administration of law and justice in any of the more important towns of the Empire, and that such an imperial office is presided over by a person called the Manager of the Chancellerie. I would beg my courteous reader to muster courage and look at that person at the moment when he is sitting in his place surrounded by all his inferiors; you will be assailed by something more than respect or fear, nay, I venture to say that you will be incapable of pronouncing a syllable; for what pride or dignity does not his face express? You could not do better than take up a brush and paint a Prometheus—a real Prometheus! His glance is like that of an eagle! his walk is easy and regular. And that very same proud eagle, as soon as he leaves that same seat of his greatness to approach the cabinet of his superior, becomes as alert as a long-legged snipe, and hurries with his documents under his arm as if he was pursued by a hawk.

In society, and especially at evening parties, though Prometheus is not of an exalted rank, yet he remains the same proud and conceited man; but as soon as he happens to meet with some one higher in dignity, such a metamorphosis takes place with our Prometheus, that even Ovid would have had the greatest difficulty in describing him properly. He has become a fly—no, even less than a fly—he has reduced himself to a grain of sand!

But this is not my friend Ivan Petrovitch, you would say in looking at him. Ivan Petrovitch is taller, and this is a little, sickly-looking person; the other speaks in a loud bass voice, and is never wont to smile, but this person warbles like a bird, and laughs continually. And yet, if you go near and examine him closer, you will find it is your friend Ivan Petrovitch. Aha! oho! will be your exclamation. However it is time for us to return again to our dramatis persona.

Tchichikoff, as we have already perceived, had come to the resolution of standing on no ceremony with the old lady, and, therefore, took up a cup of tea, poured some of the cherry-brandy into it, and began the following conversation with his hostess:

"You have a fine estate and village, my good lady. Pray, how many serfs do you possess?"

"Well, my dear Sir, I have about eighty souls living in yonder village," the matron answered; "but oh, misery! the times are bad, and besides, I had a bad harvest last year; may the Lord have mercy upon us!"

"However, to judge from appearances, your peasants look healthy, and their huts are in good repair. But allow me to inquire your name? Pardon me, I am so very absent—I arrived so very late at night—"

"My name is Korobotchka, I am the widow of the late Secretary of the Manor."

"I am very much obliged to you for the information. And pray, what are your Christian names?"

"Anastasia Petrovna, if you please."

"Anastasia Petrovna? a very fine name that of Anastasia Petrovna. I have an aunt, a sister of my mother\'s, whose name is also Anastasia Petrovna."

"And pray, what is your name?" inquired the widow of the late Secretary. "You are, no doubt, as far as I can guess, one of our district judges?"

"No, my good lady," replied Tchichikoff, smiling. "You have not guessed rightly, for I am not a judge, but I travel for my own little affairs."

"Ah! then you must be a public contractor. How very much I regret now that I sold my honey so cheap to those merchants; I am sure, my good Sir, you would have bought the honey of me."

"Pardon me, but I think I should not have bought your honey."

"What else? Perhaps some flax? But alas! I have very little at the present moment, perhaps not more than half a pud."

"No, my good lady, but I might buy perhaps some other kind of goods; tell me, if you please, have many of your peasants died lately?"

"Oh, my dear Sir, I lost eighteen men!" said the matron, with a deep sigh. "And it was a severe loss to me, for those who died were such healthy and hard-working peasants. It is true, since they died others again have been born; but what good are they as yet? they are all too young. I bad but recently a visit from the judge, who came to claim the imperial capitation tax. Those eighteen are dead, and yet I have to pay the tax upon them all the same till the next census is taken. Last week a fire destroyed my smith, and that is again a severe loss, he was such an ingenious artisan, for he could even do locksmith\'s work."

"So you have suffered from a fire? this is sad indeed, my good lady."

"May God preserve me from such a calamity! for a real fire would be worse still; the smith burned himself to death, my good Sir. Somehow, a fire took place within his own body; he had been drinking too much, for a b............