However, I have been rubbing myself with lard and turpentine.

What sort of tea will you take?
In this jar I have some of the scented kind." "Excellent, good mother! Then I will take that." Probably the reader will have noticed that, for all his expressions of solicitude, Chichikov's tone towards his hostess partook of a freer, a more unceremonious, nature than that which he had adopted towards Madam Manilov.

And here I should like to assert that, howsoever much, in certain respects, we Russians may be surpassed by foreigners, at least we surpass them in adroitness of manner.

In fact the various shades and subtleties of our social intercourse defy enumeration.

A Frenchman or a German would be incapable of envisaging and understanding all its peculiarities and differences, for his tone in speaking to a millionaire differs but little from that which he employs towards a small tobacconist--and that in spite of the circumstance that he is accustomed to cringe before the former.