When they entered the drawing room, Sobakevich indicated an easy chair, again saying: “If you please!” Seating himself, Chichikov cast a glance over the walls and the pictures hanging on them. They were all of fine, daring fellows, those pictures; Greek military leaders, almost all of them, engraved at full length: Mavrocordatos, in red pantaloons and uniform coat, with spectacles on his nose; Miaoulis, Kanaris. All these heroes had such sturdy thighs and unheard-of mustachios that they made shivers run up and down your spine. In the midst of these stalwart Greeks — there was no telling how or why he’d gotten there — was General Bagration, a gaunt little, thin little chap, with tiny banners and cannon below him and squeezed into the narrowest of frames.
“Dead Souls” by Nikolai Gogol (trans. Bernard Guilbert Guerney), p. 90
realised I never actually typed up this incredible quote
