ork and enter the Civil Service. Yet, for all the encomiums contained
in his diploma, he had much ado to procure a nomination to a Government
Department; and only after a long time was a minor post found for him,
at a salary of thirty or fourty roubles a year. Nevertheless, wretched
though this appointment was, he determined, by strict attention to
business, to overcome all obstacles, and to win success. And, indeed,
the self-denial, the patience, and the economy which he displayed
were remarkable. From early morn until late at night he would, with
indefatigable zeal of body and mind, remain immersed in his sordid task
of copying official documents--never going home, snatching what sleep he
could on tables in the building, and dining with the watchman on duty.
Yet all the while he contrived to remain clean and neat, to preserve
a cheerful expression of countenance, and even to cultivate a certain
elegance of movement. In passing, it may be remarked that his fellow
tchinovniks were a peculiarly plain, unsightly lot, some of them having
faces like badly baked bread, swollen cheeks, receding chins, and
cracked and blistered upper lips. Indeed, not a man of them was
handsome. Also, their tone of voice always contained a note of
sullenness, as though they had a mind to knock some one on the head; and
by their frequent sacrifices to Bacchus they showed that even yet there
remains in the Slavonic nature a certain element of paganism. Nay, the
Director's room itself they would invade while still licking their lips,
and since their breath was not over-aromatic, the atmosphere of the room
grew not over-pleasant. Naturally, among such an official staff a man
like Chichikov could not fail to attract attention and remark, since in
everything--in cheerfulness of demeanour, in suavity of voice, and
in complete neglect of the use of strong potions--he was the absolute
antithesis of his companions. Yet his path was not an easy one to tread,
for over him he had the misfortune to have placed in authority a Chief
Clerk who was a graven image of elderly insensibility and inertia.
Always the same, always unapproachable, this functionary could never in
his life have smiled or asked civilly after an acquaintance's health.
Nor had any one ever seen him a whit different in the street or at his
own home from what he was in the office, or showing the least interest
in anything whatever, or getting drunk and relapsing into jollity in
his cups, or ind