wearied or knocked up by a long journey who has not an idea in his head and who is not capable of entering into anything. He did not even stay to the end of supper, but went home much earlier than he generally did.
There in the little room so familiar to the reader, with the chest of drawers blocking up one door, and the cockroaches peering out of the corners, his mind and his soul were as uncomfortable as the easy-chair on which he was sitting. There was an unpleasant confused feeling in his heart; there was an oppressive emptiness in it. 'Damnation take all those who arranged that ball!' he said to himself in anger. 'What were they so pleased about in their foolishness? The crops have failed and there is dearth in the province, and here they are all for balls! A fine business! they dress themselves up in their feminine rags! It's a monstrous thing for a woman to waste a thousand roubles on her trappings! And of course it's at the expense of the peasants' earnings or what's worse still, of the consciences of our dear friends. We all know why a man takes a bribe and overcomes his scruples: it's to get his wife a shawl or robes of some sort, plague take them, whatever they are called! And what for? That some low woman shouldn't say that the postmaster's wife was better dressed, and bang goes a thousand roubles because of her. They cry out, "A ball, a ball! delightful!" A ball's a silly rubbishy thing, it's not in the Russian
