gh they should
outdo Solon himself." For the same reason he had no great love of the
author Krylov, in that the latter says in one of his Fables: "In my
opinion, the more one sings, the better one works;" and often the
pedagogue would relate how, in a former school of his, the silence had
been such that a fly could be heard buzzing on the wing, and for the
space of a whole year not a single pupil sneezed or coughed in class,
and so complete was the absence of all sound that no one could have
told that there was a soul in the place. Of this mentor young Chichikov
speedily appraised the mentality; wherefore he fashioned his behaviour
to correspond with it. Not an eyelid, not an eyebrow, would he stir
during school hours, howsoever many pinches he might receive from
behind; and only when the bell rang would he run to anticipate his
fellows in handing the master the three-cornered cap which that
dignitary customarily sported, and then to be the first to leave the
class-room, and contrive to meet the master not less than two or three
times as the latter walked homeward, in order that, on each occasion,
he might doff his cap. And the scheme proved entirely successful.
Throughout the period of his attendance at school he was held in high
favour, and, on leaving the establishment, received full marks for every
subject, as well as a diploma and a book inscribed (in gilt letters)
"For Exemplary Diligence and the Perfection of Good Conduct." By this
time he had grown into a fairly good-looking youth of the age when the
chin first calls for a razor; and at about the same period his father
died, leaving behind him, as his estate, four waistcoats completely worn
out, two ancient frockcoats, and a small sum of money. Apparently he had
been skilled only in RECOMMENDING the saving of kopecks--not in ACTUALLY
PRACTISING the art. Upon that Chichikov sold the old house and its
little parcel of land for a thousand roubles, and removed, with his
one serf and the serf's family, to the capital, where he set about
organising a new establishment and entering the Civil Service.
Simultaneously with his doing so, his old schoolmaster lost (through
stupidity or otherwise) the establishment over which he had hitherto
presided, and in which he had set so much store by silence and good
behaviour. Grief drove him to drink, and when nothing was left, even
for that purpose, he retired--ill, helpless, and starving--into a
broken-down, cheerless hovel. But c