o aught but continue
staring at his interlocutor.

"I think that you are disturbing yourself unnecessarily," was
Chichikov's next remark.

"I? Oh no! Not at all!" stammered Manilov. "Only--pardon me--I do not
quite comprehend you. You see, never has it fallen to my lot to acquire
the brilliant polish which is, so to speak, manifest in your every
movement. Nor have I ever been able to attain the art of expressing
myself well. Consequently, although there is a possibility that in
the--er--utterances which have just fallen from your lips there may
lie something else concealed, it may equally be that--er--you have been
pleased so to express yourself for the sake of the beauty of the terms
wherein that expression found shape?"

"Oh, no," asserted Chichikov. "I mean what I say and no more. My
reference to such of your pleasant souls as are dead was intended to be
taken literally."

Manilov still felt at a loss--though he was conscious that he MUST do
something, he MUST propound some question. But what question? The devil
alone knew! In the end he merely expelled some more tobacco smoke--this
time from his nostrils as well as from his mouth.

"So," went on Chichikov, "if no obstacle stands in the way, we might as
well proceed to the completion of the purchase."

"What? Of the purchase of the dead souls?"

"Of the 'dead' souls? Oh dear no! Let us write them down as LIVING ones,
seeing that that is how they figure in the census returns. Never do I
permit myself to step outside the civil law, great though has been
the harm which that rule has wrought me in my career. In my eyes an
obligation is a sacred thing. In the presence of the law I am dumb."

These last words reassured Manilov not a little: yet still the meaning
of the affair remained to him a mystery. By way of answer, he fell to
sucking at his pipe with such vehemence that at length the pipe began
to gurgle like a bassoon. It was as though he had been seeking of
it inspiration in the present unheard-of juncture. But the pipe only
gurgled, et praeterea nihil.

"Perhaps you feel doubtful about the proposal?" said Chichikov.

"Not at all," replied Manilov. "But you will, I know, excuse me if I
say (and I say it out of no spirit of prejudice, nor yet as criticising
yourself in any way)--you will, I know, excuse me if I say that possibly
this--er--this, er, SCHEME of yours, this--er--TRANSACTION of yours, may
fail altogether to accord with the Civil Statutes and P