s nor excessive activity of brain.

CHAPTER VII

When Chichikov awoke he stretched himself and realised that he had slept
well. For a moment or two he lay on his back, and then suddenly clapped
his hands at the recollection that he was now owner of nearly four
hundred souls. At once he leapt out of bed without so much as glancing
at his face in the mirror, though, as a rule, he had much solicitude for
his features, and especially for his chin, of which he would make the
most when in company with friends, and more particularly should any one
happen to enter while he was engaged in the process of shaving. "Look
how round my chin is!" was his usual formula. On the present occasion,
however, he looked neither at chin nor at any other feature, but at once
donned his flower-embroidered slippers of morroco leather (the kind
of slippers in which, thanks to the Russian love for a dressing-gowned
existence, the town of Torzhok does such a huge trade), and, clad only
in a meagre shirt, so far forgot his elderliness and dignity as to cut
a couple of capers after the fashion of a Scottish highlander--alighting
neatly, each time, on the flat of his heels. Only when he had done that
did he proceed to business. Planting himself before his dispatch-box,
he rubbed his hands with a satisfaction worthy of an incorruptible rural
magistrate when adjourning for luncheon; after which he extracted from
the receptacle a bundle of papers. These he had decided not to deposit
with a lawyer, for the reason that he would hasten matters, as well as
save expense, by himself framing and fair-copying the necessary deeds
of indenture; and since he was thoroughly acquainted with the necessary
terminology, he proceeded to inscribe in large characters the date, and
then in smaller ones, his name and rank. By two o'clock the whole was
finished, and as he looked at the sheets of names representing bygone
peasants who had ploughed, worked at handicrafts, cheated their masters,
fetched, carried, and got drunk (though SOME of them may have behaved
well), there came over him a strange, unaccountable sensation. To his
eye each list of names seemed to possess a character of its own;
and even individual peasants therein seemed to have taken on certain
qualities peculiar to themselves. For instance, to the majority of
Madame Korobotchka's serfs there were appended nicknames and other
additions; Plushkin's list was distinguished by a conciseness of
exposition whic