for experience has taught me that we do not willingly familiarise
ourselves with the lower orders--that it is the custom of the average
Russian to yearn exclusively for information concerning persons on the
higher rungs of the social ladder. In fact, even a bowing acquaintance
with a prince or a lord counts, in his eyes, for more than do the most
intimate of relations with ordinary folk. For the same reason the
author feels apprehensive on his hero's account, seeing that he has
made that hero a mere Collegiate Councillor--a mere person with whom
Aulic Councillors might consort, but upon whom persons of the grade of
full General[1] would probably bestow one of those glances proper to a
man who is cringing at their august feet. Worse still, such persons of
the grade of General are likely to treat Chichikov with studied
negligence--and to an author studied negligence spells death.

[1] In this case the term General refers to a civil grade equivalent
to the military rank of the same title.

However, in spite of the distressfulness of the foregoing
possibilities, it is time that I returned to my hero. After issuing,
overnight, the necessary orders, he awoke early, washed himself,
rubbed himself from head to foot with a wet sponge (a performance
executed only on Sundays--and the day in question happened to be a
Sunday), shaved his face with such care that his cheeks issued of
absolutely satin-like smoothness and polish, donned first his
bilberry-coloured, spotted frockcoat, and then his bearskin overcoat,
descended the staircase (attended, throughout, by the waiter) and
entered his britchka. With a loud rattle the vehicle left the
inn-yard, and issued into the street. A passing priest doffed his cap,
and a few urchins in grimy shirts shouted, "Gentleman, please give a
poor orphan a trifle!" Presently the driver noticed that a sturdy