True, to the reader Chichikov's displeasure cannot matter a jot; but for the author it would mean ruin to quarrel with his hero, seeing that, arm in arm, Chichikov and he have yet far to go.
"Tut, tut, tut!" came in a shout from Chichikov.

"Hi, Selifan!" "What is it ?" came the reply, uttered with a drawl.
"What is it?
Why, how dare you drive like that?
Come! Bestir yourself a little!" And indeed, Selifan had long been sitting with half-closed eyes, and hands which bestowed no encouragement upon his somnolent steeds save an occasional flicking of the reins against their flanks; whilst Petrushka had lost his cap, and was leaning backwards until his head had come to rest against Chichikov's knees--a position which necessitated his being awakened with a cuff.

Selifan also roused himself, and apportioned to the skewbald a few cuts across the back of a kind which at least had the effect of inciting that animal to trot; and when, presently, the other two horses followed their companion's example, the light britchka moved forwards like a piece of thistledown.

Selifan flourished his whip and shouted, "Hi, hi!" as the inequalities of the road jerked him vertically on his seat; and meanwhile, reclining against the leather cushions of the vehicle's interior, Chichikov smiled with gratification at the sensation of driving fast.

For what Russian does not love to drive fast?
Which of us does not at times yearn to give his horses their head, and to let them go, and to cry, "To the devil with the world!"?
At such moments a great force seems to uplift one as on wings; and one flies, and everything else flies, but contrariwise--both the verst stones, and traders riding on the shafts of their waggons, and the forest with dark lines of spruce and fir amid which may be heard the axe of the woodcutter and the croaking of the raven.