young rascal was on the point of climbing onto the splashboard;
wherefore he cracked his whip and the britchka leapt forward with
increased speed over the cobblestones. At last, with a feeling of
relief, the travellers caught sight of macadam ahead, which promised
an end both to the cobblestones and to sundry other annoyances. And,
sure enough, after his head had been bumped a few more times against
the boot of the conveyance, Chichikov found himself bowling over
softer ground. On the town receding into the distance, the sides of
the road began to be varied with the usual hillocks, fir trees, clumps
of young pine, trees with old, scarred trunks, bushes of wild juniper,
and so forth, Presently there came into view also strings of country
villas which, with their carved supports and grey roofs (the latter
looking like pendent, embroidered tablecloths), resembled, rather,
bundles of old faggots. Likewise the customary peasants, dressed in
sheepskin jackets, could be seen yawning on benches before their huts,
while their womenfolk, fat of feature and swathed of bosom, gazed out
of upper windows, and the windows below displayed, here a peering
calf, and there the unsightly jaws of a pig. In short, the view was
one of the familiar type. After passing the fifteenth verst-stone
Chichikov suddenly recollected that, according to Manilov, fifteen
versts was the exact distance between his country house and the town;
but the sixteenth verst stone flew by, and the said country house was
still nowhere to be seen. In fact, but for the circumstance that the
travellers happened to encounter a couple of peasants, they would have
come on their errand in vain. To a query as to whether the country
house known as Zamanilovka was anywhere in the neighbourhood the
peasants replied by doffing their caps; after which one of them who
seemed to boast of a little more intelligence than his companion, and
who wore a wedge-shaped beard, made answer: