"I have seen you before, but have been ordered to admit any one else rather than Monsieur Chichikov." "Indeed?
And why so ?" "Those are my orders, and they must be obeyed," said the footman, confronting Chichikov with none of that politeness with which, on former occasions, he had hastened to divest our hero of his wrappings.
Evidently he was of opinion that, since the gentry declined to receive the visitor, the latter must certainly be a rogue.
"I cannot understand it," said Chichikov to himself.

Then he departed, and made his way to the house of the President of the Council.

But so put about was that official by Chichikov's entry that he could not utter two consecutive words--he could only murmur some rubbish which left both his visitor and himself out of countenance.

Chichikov wondered, as he left the house, what the President's muttered words could have meant, but failed to make head or tail of them.

Next, he visited, in turn, the Chief of Police, the Vice-Governor, the Postmaster, and others; but in each case he either failed to be accorded admittance or was received so strangely, and with such a measure of constraint and conversational awkwardness and absence of mind and embarrassment, that he began to fear for the sanity of his hosts.