course, there became
appended various additional proofs and items of evidence, in proportion
as the sensation spread to more remote corners of the town. At length,
with these perfectings, the affair reached the ears of the Governor's
wife herself. Naturally, as the mother of a family, and as the first
lady in the town, and as a matron who had never before been suspected of
things of the kind, she was highly offended when she heard the stories,
and very justly so: with the result that her poor young daughter, though
innocent, had to endure about as unpleasant a tete-a-tete as ever befell
a maiden of sixteen, while, for his part, the Swiss footman received
orders never at any time to admit Chichikov to the house.

Having done their business with the Governor's wife, the ladies' party
descended upon the male section, with a view to influencing it to their
own side by asserting that the dead souls were an invention used solely
for the purpose of diverting suspicion and successfully affecting the
abduction. And, indeed, more than one man was converted, and joined the
feminine camp, in spite of the fact that thereby such seceders incurred
strong names from their late comrades--names such as "old women,"
"petticoats," and others of a nature peculiarly offensive to the male
sex.

Also, however much they might arm themselves and take the field, the
men could not compass such orderliness within their ranks as could the
women. With the former everything was of the antiquated and rough-hewn
and ill-fitting and unsuitable and badly-adapted and inferior kind;
their heads were full of nothing but discord and triviality and
confusion and slovenliness of thought. In brief, they displayed
everywhere the male bent, the rude, ponderous nature which is incapable
either of managing a household or of jumping to a conclusion, as well
as remains always distrustful and lazy and full of constant doubt and
everlasting timidity. For instance, the men's party declared that the
whole story was rubbish--that the alleged abduction of the Governor's
daughter was the work rather of a military than of a civilian culprit;
that the ladies were lying when they accused Chichikov of the deed;
that a woman was like a money-bag--whatsoever you put into her she
thenceforth retained; that the subject which really demanded attention
was the dead souls, of which the devil only knew the meaning, but in
which there certainly lurked something that was contrary to goo