"And indeed," the host said, addressing Chichikov, also with an agreeable smile, "what can be more enviable than the age of infancy: no cares, no thoughts of the future ..."

"A state one would immediately exchange for one's own," said Chichikov.

"At a glance," said Lenitsyn.

But it seems they were both lying: had they been offered such an exchange, they would straightaway have backed out of it. And what fun is it, indeed, sitting in a nurse's arms and spoiling tailcoats!

The young mistress and the firstborn withdrew with the nurse, because something on him had to be put right: having rewarded Chichikov, he had not forgotten himself either.

This apparently insignificant circumstance won the host over completely to satisfying Chichikov. How, indeed, refuse a guest who has been so tender to his little one and paid for it magnanimously with his own tailcoat? Lenitsyn reflected thus: "Why, indeed, not fulfill his request, if such is his wish?" [The rest of the chapter is missing from the manuscript.—Trans.]

At the very moment when Chichikov, in a new Persian dressing gown of gold satin, sprawling on the sofa, was bargaining with an itinerant smuggler-merchant of Jewish extraction and German enunciation, and before them already lay a purchased piece of the foremost Holland shirt linen and two pasteboard boxes with excellent soap of first-rate quality (this was precisely the soap he used to acquire at the Radziwill customs; it indeed had the property of imparting an amazing tenderness and whiteness to the cheeks)—at the moment when he, as a connoisseur, was buying these products necessary for a cultivated man, there came the rumble of a carriage driving up, echoed by a slight reverberation of the windows and walls, and in walked His Excellency Alexei Ivanovich Lenitsyn.

"I lay it before Your Excellency's judgment: what linen, what soap, and how about this little thing I bought yesterday!" At which Chichikov put on his head a skullcap embroidered with gold and beads, and acquired the look of a Persian shah, filled with dignity and majesty.

But His Excellency, without answering the question, said with a worried look:

"I must talk with you about an important matter."

One could see by his face that he was upset. The worthy merchant of German enunciation was sent out at once, and they were left alone.

"Do you know what trouble is brewing? They've found another will of the old woman's, made five years ago. Half of the estate goes to the monastery, and the other half is divided equally between the two wards, and nothing to anyone else."

Chichikov was dumbfounded.

"Well, that will is nonsense. It means nothing, it is annulled by the second one."

"But it's not stated in the second will that it annuls the first."

"It goes without saying: the second annuls the first. The first will is totally worthless. I know the will of the deceased woman very well. I was with her. Who signed it? Who were the witnesses?"

"It was certified in the proper manner, in court. The witnesses were the former probate judge Burmilov and Khavanov."

"That's bad," thought Chichikov, "they say Khavanov's an honest man; Burmilov is an old hypocrite, reads the epistle in church on feast days."

"Nonsense, nonsense," he said aloud, and at once felt himself prepared for any trick. "I know better: I shared the deceased woman's last minutes. I'm informed better than anyone. I'm ready to testify personally under oath."

These words and his resoluteness set Lenitsyn at ease for the moment. He was very worried and had already begun to suspect the possibility of some fabrication on Chichikov's part with regard to the will. Now he reproached himself for his suspicions. The readiness to testify under oath was clear proof that Chichikov was innocent. We do not know whether Pavel Ivanovich would have had the courage to swear on the Bible, but he did have the courage to say it.

"Rest assured, I'll discuss the matter with several lawyers. There's nothing here that needs doing on your part; you must stay out of it entirely. And I can now live in town as long as I like."

Chichikov straightaway ordered the carriage readied and went to see a lawyer. This lawyer was a man of extraordinary experience. For fifteen years he had been on trial himself, but he had managed so that it was quite impossible to remove him from his post. Everyone knew him, and knew that he ought to have been sent into exile six times over for his deeds. There were suspicions of him all around and on every side, yet it was impossible to present any clear and proven evidence. Here there was indeed something mysterious, and he might have been boldly recognized as a sorcerer if the story we are telling belonged to the times of ignorance.

The lawyer struck him with the coldness of his looks and the greasiness of his dressing gown, in complete contrast to the good mahogany furniture, the golden clock under its glass case, the chandelier visible through the muslin cover protecting it, and generally to everything around him, which bore the vivid stamp of brilliant European cultivation.

Not hindered, however, by the lawyer's skeptical appearance, Chichikov explained the difficult points of the matter and depicted in alluring perspective the gratitude necessarily consequent upon good counsel and concern.

To this the lawyer responded by depicting the uncertainty of all earthly things, and artfully alluded to the fact that two birds in the bush meant nothing, and what was needed was one in the hand.

There was no help for it: he had to give him the bird in the hand. The philosophers skeptical coldness suddenly vanished. He turned out to be a most good-natured man, most talkative, and most agreeable in his talk, not inferior to Chichikov himself in the adroitness of his manners.

"If I may, instead of starting a long case, you probably did not examine the will very well: there's probably some sort of little addition. Take it home for a while. Though, of course, it's prohibited to take such things home, still, if you ask certain officials nicely ... I, for my part, will exercise my concern."

"I see," thought Chichikov, and he said: "In fact, I really don't remember very well whether there was a little addition or not"— as if he had not written the will himself.

"You'd best look into that. However, in any case," he continued good-naturedly, "always be calm and don't be put out by anything, even if something worse happens. Don't despair of anything ever: there are no incorrigible cases. Look at me: I'm always calm. Whatever mishaps are imputed to me, my calm is imperturbable."

The face of the lawyer-philosopher indeed preserved an extraordinary calm, so that Chichikov was greatly . . . [The sentence is unfinished in the manuscript.—Trans.]

"Of course, that's the first thing," he said. "Admit, however, that there may be such cases and matters, such matters and such calumnies on the part of one's enemies, and such difficult situations, that all calm flies away."

"Believe me, that is pusillanimity," the philosopher-jurist replied very calmly and good-naturedly. "Only make sure that the case is all based on documents, that nothing is merely verbal. And as soon as you see that the case is reaching a denouement and can conveniently be resolved, make sure—not really to justify and defend yourself—no, but simply to confuse things by introducing new and even unrelated issues."

"You mean, so as ...”