Chichikov's amusement at the peasant's outburst prevented him from noticing that he had reached the centre of a large and populous village; but, presently, a violent jolt aroused him to the fact that he was driving over wooden pavements of a kind compared with which the cobblestones of the town had been as nothing.

Like the keys of a piano, the planks kept rising and falling, and unguarded passage over them entailed either a bump on the back of the neck or a bruise on the forehead or a bite on the tip of one's tongue.

At the same time Chichikov noticed a look of decay about the buildings of the village.
The beams of the huts had grown dark with age, many of their roofs were riddled with holes, others had but a tile of the roof remaining, and yet others were reduced to the rib-like framework of the same.

It would seem as though the inhabitants themselves had removed the laths and traverses, on the very natural plea that the huts were no protection against the rain, and therefore, since the latter entered in bucketfuls, there was no particular object to be gained by sitting in such huts when all the time there was the tavern and the highroad and other places to resort to.
Suddenly a woman appeared from an outbuilding--apparently the housekeeper of the mansion, but so roughly and dirtily dressed as almost to seem indistinguishable from a man.

Chichikov inquired for the master of the place.
"He is not at home," she replied, almost before her interlocutor had had time to finish.