On driving up to the house, Tchichikoff soon perceived a human figure, who began to converse with the peasant who had just arrived with his telega. For a long while he could not discover to what sex this figure belonged; whether it was an old woman or a mouzhik. The dress was absolutely shapeless, but nevertheless very much like a female\'s garb, the head-dress was a kind of colpack, as worn by the aged village crones, yet the voice seemed to him to be too loud for a woman\'s.

"Oh,\'tis an old woman!" he thought for a moment to himself, and immediately added: "oh, no. To be sure,\'tis a woman," he said at last, after a closer examination.

The figure, on its side, also looked very attentively at Tchichikoff. A guest or a stranger seemed to be to it a wonderful apparition, because it not only looked at him alone, but also at Selifan and the horses, beginning from their tails, and ending with their heads. To judge by the keys which were hanging down its left side by a broad belt, and because it was scolding the poor peasant of the cart in a very loud voice, Tchichikoff came to the conclusion that this figure was obviously the housekeeper.

"Halloa, old mother," said he, as he got out of his britchka, "where is your master?"

"Not at home," the housekeeper interrupted him, not waiting even for the question to be finished, but a moment later she added: "and what do you want?"

"I have some business with him."

"Will you then walk into this room," said the housekeeper, turning round and showing him her back covered all over with flour, and the lower portion of her garb tom beneath.

He entered a large and dark passage, the air in which was as cold and damp as in a cellar. From the passage he emerged into a small room, also very dark, scarcely enlivened by a glimpse of light, which shone through a large crevice in the lower portion of the door opposite. On opening this broken door before him, he at last entered an apartment in which real daylight greeted him, though the disorder which prevailed in it surprised him considerably.

It seemed as if the other portions of the house were undergoing a regular scrubbing, and that this room had been chosen for the temporary reception of all the furniture. Upon one of the large tables stood an old broken chair, and, next to it lay an old clock with its silent pendulum, around which some spiders had already found time to spin their cobwebs. There also leant against the wall an old-fashioned cupboard, covered with old silver plate, decanters, glasses and china.

Upon a large writing table, inlaid with mother of pearl mosaic, which was broken out in many places, leaving but the yellow spots of the mastic behind, lay a variety of objects; a heap of written small slips of papers, upon which lay a marble letter-weight with a handle in the shape of an egg on it, an ancient looking book, bound in rough Russian leather with red edges, a lemon, dried and withered away to the size of a walnut, a piece of a broken arm-chair, a wine glass containing a dark fluid with three dead flies in it, a few letters, some sealing-wax, a small dirty rag, picked up somewhere on the road, two quills, besmeared all over with ink, which had dried upon them long since, a tooth-brush, which had become quite yellow from age and use, and with which the owner seemed to have been in the habit of cleaning his teeth ever since the French invasion of 1812.

Whilst Tchichikoff was still looking around him at the strange arrangement of this apartment, the same housekeeper entered again, through a small side door, which he had seen on his arrival in the court-yard. But now this person appeared to him rather a steward than a female housekeeper: because a woman is not likely to use a razor upon her face, and this person seemed to have the habit of shaving, though it appeared to be done but occasionally, because the whole of the lower portion of her face looked rather like a scrubbing-brush for a horse\'s skin made of strong iron wire.

Tchichikoff giving his face an expression of inquisitiveness, now looked anxiously forward, awaiting the steward to be the first speaker. The steward, in his turn, seemed also determined to await what Tchichikoff had to say in explanation of his presence.

At last, however, our hero getting tired of this unpleasant suspense and silence, resolved to address the strange-looking person before him.

"Well, where is your master? is he at home?"

"He is here," said the steward.

"Where is he?" repeated Tchichikoff.

"Well, my good Sir, you are perhaps shortsighted," said the steward. "I am the master whom you wish to see."

Hereupon our hero could not help stepping back a few paces and looking steadfastly at the man before him.

It had happened to him to meet with people of all bodily descriptions, even with such persons as most likely our courteous reader and ourselves never met; but such a man as he now saw before him he had never met with before.

His face did not present any particularly striking features; it was nearly like all faces of lean and old men; his chin projected to such an extent that he was obliged to cover it with his pocket-handkerchief so as not to spit upon it occasionally; his small eyes very far from being dimmed by age, on the contrary, from under their heavy eyebrows they glittered like those of a mouse, when that little animal comes forward from its hole and puts forth its little snout to smell about if there is any danger from a cat, or whether some naughty boy has not laid a trap for it.

His dress was much more characteristic and remarkable. No investigation or expedient would have availed to discover of what peculiar material his morning-gown had been patched together; the sleeves and upper body of his dress were greased and besmeared to such a degree, that they actually had the appearance if not exactly the peculiar smell of that celebrated Russian leather called "jüchte," and which is commonly used among the lower classes to make their boots of.

From his back, four skirts hung loosely down instead of two, and out of which the cotton wadding was profusely bursting forth. There was also something tied round his neck, but it was impossible to define whether it was a stocking, a garter, or a pair of braces; at all events, it was not a neckerchief.

In a word, if Tchichikoff had met this man thus attired near the portal of a church, he would have undoubtedly tendered him a few coppers, for be it said to the honour of our hero that he was of a charitable disposition, and that he could seldom resist the temptation of giving a copek to a beggar.

But before him there now stood not a beggar, but a Russian landlord of rank. A man who called more than a thousand human beings his own serfs, and it would have also been difficult for any one to find many other proprietors possessing such extensive granaries filled with such a variety and quantity of com, flour, and meal—or to behold stores and warehouses like his, stocked with equal quantities of linen, cloth, wool, in fleeces, and shorn from the skin, smoked meats, dried fish, and other products of a fertile soil.

Pluschkin had been standing for some minutes without speaking a word, but Tchichikoff was still unable to begin a conversation, for he was completely disconcerted by the singular appearance of the man before him, as well as by everything that surrounded him in the room. For a long time he could not imagine in what terms to explain the object of his visit. He was several times on the point of expressing himself in the following terms: that, having heard the praise of his benevolence and the rare qualities of his heart, he felt it to be his duty to come and pay his personal tribute at the shrine of such great virtues, but he suddenly bethought himself, and felt that this would be saying too much.

Casting another hasty glance upon everything in the room, he came to the conclusion, that the words benefactor and rare qualities of the heart, might be successfully replaced by the following terms: economy and order; after this observation, he adapted his address in consequence and spoke thus:—

"That he had heard much to the advantage of his system of economy and the wise administration of his vast estates, and that he therefore felt it his duty to seek his acquaintance and acknowledge personally his profound esteem for a man of such great reputation." We must confess, that some more plausible reason might have been brought forward, however; nothing better suggested itself to the mind of our hero at that particular moment.

To this complimentary address, Pluschkin murmured something in reply between his lips, because he had no teeth; what the exact words were it is impossible for us to tell, very likely something to the following effect: "The devil take you and your esteem!"

But, as hospitality is still in fashion with us, so much in fashion indeed, that even a miser dare not offend its laws and privileges, therefore the old niggard added immediately, and a little more audibly, "I pray you, Sir, be seated!"

"It is long since I have received company," said he, "and I must candidly confess I see no advantage in welcoming idle visitors. Some foolish people have introduced the fashion of driving about from one estate to the other, and thus neglect their own households—and if they happen to arrive, you have even to feed their horses and men as well! I have already dined some hours since, and my kitchen is so very low, badly constructed, and the chimney is crumbling, that, were I to order some fire again I might easily set the whole house on fire."

"Oh, oh, is that it!" thought Tchichikoff to himself, "it is well I made a good dinner at Sobakevitch\'s house, on the cabbage and shoulder of mutton."

"And a truss of hay and some bushels of oats are no joke in these hard times in any household!" continued Pluschkin, "and really, the more I think of it the more absurd this evil custom seems to me. I have but a small estate, my peasants are idle and do not like to ............