hindered operations or the materials used were of the
kind which prevents official edifices from ever rising higher than the
basement. But, meanwhile, OTHER quarters of the town saw arise, for each
member of the Commission, a handsome house of the NON-official style of
architecture. Clearly the foundation afforded by the soil of those parts
was better than that where the Government building was still engaged
in hanging fire! Likewise the members of the Commission began to look
exceedingly prosperous, and to blossom out into family life; and, for
the first time in his existence, even Chichikov also departed from the
iron laws of his self-imposed restraint and inexorable self-denial, and
so far mitigated his heretofore asceticism as to show himself a man not
averse to those amenities which, during his youth, he had been capable
of renouncing. That is to say, certain superfluities began to make their
appearance in his establishment. He engaged a good cook, took to wearing
linen shirts, bought for himself cloth of a pattern worn by no one else
in the province, figured in checks shot with the brightest of reds and
browns, fitted himself out with two splendid horses (which he drove with
a single pair of reins, added to a ring attachment for the trace horse),
developed a habit of washing with a sponge dipped in eau-de-Cologne, and
invested in soaps of the most expensive quality, in order to communicate
to his skin a more elegant polish.

But suddenly there appeared upon the scene a new Director--a military
man, and a martinet as regarded his hostility to bribe-takers and
anything which might be called irregular. On the very day after his
arrival he struck fear into every breast by calling for accounts,
discovering hosts of deficits and missing sums, and directing his
attention to the aforesaid fine houses of civilian architecture. Upon
that there ensued a complete reshuffling. Tchinovniks were retired
wholesale, and the houses were sequestrated to the Government, or else
converted into various pious institutions and schools for soldiers'
children. Thus the whole fabric, and especially Chichikov, came crashing
to the ground. Particularly did our hero's agreeable face displease the
new Director. Why that was so it is impossible to say, but frequently,
in cases of the kind, no reason exists. However, the Director conceived
a mortal dislike to him, and also extended that enmity to the whole of
Chichikov's colleagues. But inasmuch