Certain of the ladies even took to bickering over him, and, on perceiving that he spent most of his time standing near the door, some of their number hastened to occupy chairs nearer to his post of vantage.

In fact, when a certain dame chanced to have the good fortune to anticipate a hated rival in the race there very nearly ensued a most lamentable scene--which, to many of those who had been desirous of doing exactly the same thing, seemed a peculiarly horrible instance of brazen-faced audacity.
So deeply did Chichikov become plunged in conversation with his fair pursuers--or rather, so deeply did those fair pursuers enmesh him in the toils of small talk (which they accomplished through the expedient of asking him endless subtle riddles which brought the sweat to his brow in his attempts to guess them)--that he forgot the claims of courtesy which required him first of all to greet his hostess.

In fact, he remembered those claims only on hearing the Governor's wife herself addressing him.
She had been standing before him for several minutes, and now greeted him with suave expressement and the words, "So HERE you are, Paul Ivanovitch!" But what she said next I am not in a position to report, for she spoke in the ultra-refined tone and vein wherein ladies and gentlemen customarily express themselves in high-class novels which have been written by experts more qualified than I am to describe salons, and able to boast of some acquaintance with good society.

In effect, what the Governor's wife said was that she hoped--she greatly hoped--that Monsieur Chichikov's heart still contained a corner--even the smallest possible corner--for those whom he had so cruelly forgotten.

Upon that Chichikov turned to her, and was on the point of returning a reply at least no worse than that which would have been returned, under similar circumstances, by the hero of a fashionable novelette, when he stopped short, as though thunderstruck.
Before him there was standing not only Madame, but also a young girl whom she was holding by the hand.