d order
and discipline. One reason why the men's party was so certain that the
dead souls connoted something contrary to good order and discipline,
was that there had just been appointed to the province a new
Governor-General--an event which, of course, had thrown the whole army
of provincial tchinovniks into a state of great excitement, seeing that
they knew that before long there would ensue transferments and sentences
of censure, as well as the series of official dinners with which a
Governor-General is accustomed to entertain his subordinates. "Alas,"
thought the army of tchinovniks, "it is probable that, should he learn
of the gross reports at present afloat in our town, he will make such a
fuss that we shall never hear the last of them." In particular did
the Director of the Medical Department turn pale at the thought that
possibly the new Governor-General would surmise the term "dead folk"
to connote patients in the local hospitals who, for want of proper
preventative measures, had died of sporadic fever. Indeed, might it not
be that Chichikov was neither more nor less than an emissary of the said
Governor-General, sent to conduct a secret inquiry? Accordingly he (the
Director of the Medical Department) communicated this last supposition
to the President of the Council, who, though at first inclined to
ejaculate "Rubbish!" suddenly turned pale on propounding to himself the
theory. "What if the souls purchased by Chichikov should REALLY be
dead ones?"--a terrible thought considering that he, the President, had
permitted their transferment to be registered, and had himself acted
as Plushkin's representative! What if these things should reach the
Governor-General's ears? He mentioned the matter to one friend and
another, and they, in their turn, went white to the lips, for panic
spreads faster and is even more destructive, than the dreaded black
death. Also, to add to the tchinovniks' troubles, it so befell that
just at this juncture there came into the local Governor's hands two
documents of great importance. The first of them contained advices that,
according to received evidence and reports, there was operating in the
province a forger of rouble-notes who had been passing under various
aliases and must therefore be sought for with the utmost diligence;
while the second document was a letter from the Governor of a
neighbouring province with regard to a malefactor who had there evaded
apprehension--a letter conveyin