Dead Souls

The next day, Kostanzhoglo loans Chichikov money for his estate purchase and then gives him a tour of his prosperous farming operation. Chichikov is impressed with Kostanzhoglo’s single-minded practicality. The two set off to inspect Khlobuyev’s estate, which is in obvious disarray. The man greets them warmly and laments his destitution—selling the estate will go only to his debts. Kostanzhoglo is disgusted with Khlobuyev, insisting he could have at least grown vegetables to feed his family.

As they tour the land, Kostanzhoglo reminds Chichikov not to get distracted by appealing landscapes, as prosperity and work are worth more than pastoral idylls. He also asserts that patience, not dreaming of fast riches, is the only way to a stable and contented life like his own.

Khlobuyev, Platonov, and Chichikov discuss how the national character may account for Khlobuyev’s situation. Khlobuyev’s expensive education has taught him only to have expensive tastes, and this national habit is not unique to him. He and his fellow Russians “keep thinking: tomorrow I begin a new life, starting tomorrow I go on a diet—but it never happens. By the evening, if not the same day, they stuff themselves so full that they can only flap their eyelids and can’t get their tongue round a word” (6191-93).

Chichikov and Khlobuyev haggle over the estate price, and Chichikov decides to delay payment for as many days as possible. Khlobuyev announces he will move to town, and laments that the provinces do not have good instructors in art and music. This surprises Chichikov and Platonov, who are further stunned when Khlobuyev brings out champagne.

Khlobuyev is a skilled observer of society and people, but he fantasizes that somehow acquiring massive piles of money will save his situation. He mentions an aunt with a fortune in the millions, and Chichikov takes care to note her name and the location of her residence. Platonov is shocked again when Khlobuyev invites him to a dinner party he is hosting, unaware that “in Russia’s towns and capital cities there are sages whose lives are completely inexplicable enigmas. They seem to have squandered everything, they are up to their ears in debt, they have no resources left, but they give dinners” (6278-79). Khlobuyev is sustained partly by his religious faith, and partly by donations from friends who save him from ruin.

Platonov and Chichikov leave. Chichikov is preoccupied with thoughts of his new purchase. He entertains many possible futures, from being a prosperous landowner to absconding with Kostanzhoglo’s loan. He is primarily overjoyed to finally own tangible property rather than assets that only exist on paper. Soon, they approach the well-maintained estate of Platonov’s brother Vasily. Vasily sizes up Chichikov, finding him respectable, though he is surprised his brother has agreed to travel with a stranger.

Chichikov explains his project to travel the world while disseminating news of General Bertrishchev’s daughter’s betrothal, and Vasily hopes this journey ends his brother’s “mental hibernation” (6371). Vasily is in a land dispute with his neighbor, Lenitsyn (possibly the same neighbor General Bertrishchev and Tentetnikov dislike). Chichikov offers to act as mediator.

When the text resumes after a gap, Chichikov and Lenitsyn are discussing a possible transaction for Lenitsyn’s deceased peasants. Chichikov overcomes Lenitsyn’s reluctance by making a good impression on his wife and holding their baby. He conceals his wrath and disgust when the baby spits up on him. The Lenitsyns rationalize any moral concerns by deciding, “to carry out the transaction in secret, since it wasn’t the transaction so much as the appearance of wrongdoing that was damaging” (6435).

The text ends here. A summary of the lost chapters explains that they would likely describe the marriage of Tentetnikov and Ulinka, followed by Tentetnikov’s arrest for political subversion and exile to Siberia. Chichikov would draft a fraudulent will prior to the death of Khlobuyev’s wealthy aunt, creating a scandal by depriving her lawful heirs of their inheritance.

Chichikov faces the consequences of forging Khlobuyev’s aunt’s will. Lenitsyn lets Chichikov know that the real will has been found; it leaves most of the fortune to two relatives and a monastery. Chichikov realizes he and Lenitsyn may be in real trouble, as the judges who witnessed the authentic will are not particularly corrupt, and so are less open to bribes. He assures Lenitsyn that he would testify in court that he saw the aunt produce the fake will.

Chichikov sees a lawyer, who turns out to be a specialist in corruption: Chichikov must bribe the lawyer before receiving any advice. The lawyer then suggests he take the fake will home and amend it. He further suggests implicating as many other people as possible, so that the case would require much more labor to untangle and dilute Chichikov’s liability. This is not only professional advice, but also this lawyer’s personal strategy: “Why am I so calm? Because I know that if things ever get worse for me, I’ll entangle everybody in my case: the governor, the vice-governor, the chief of police and the treasurer—I’ll entangle the lot of them” (6510-12).

With his ill-gotten funds secreted on his person, Chichikov visits a local fair in search of fine clothing. He purchases a lavish red silk cloth to make a coat. Some local notables arrive, including Khlobuyev and the fabulously wealthy alcohol monopolist Murazov. Everyone obsequiously fawns over Murazov until he leaves. The remaining men speculate what they would do with great wealth, but Khlobuyev laments that it would not change his fundamental inability to manage his affairs.

Murazov meets with Khlobuyev, who claims his finances are somewhat improved by a bequest from his aunt, and explains the affair of the fraudulent will. Murazov asks Khlobuyev what employment he would undertake if he had enough money, but rejects Khlobuyev desire to simply educate his children. He exhorts Khlobuyev that all must seek gainful employment, not mere civil service posts. Since Khlobuyev is a devout Orthodox Christian, he should undertake a new task on behalf of the church, collecting funds for a new building, which he can do as a respected member of the gentry. Khlobuyev worries that this requires travel and time away from his family, but Murazov tells him he will take care of them—Khlobuyev need only concentrate on his holy mission.

The matter of the forged will has entered the courts, implicating Chichikov. There are accusations from Chichikov’s past as a customs official. When the reader next sees Chichikov, he is preening in his new red coat, very pleased with his appearance. Before he can truly complete his new wardrobe, the police summon Chichikov to see the governor general.

Consumed with fear, Chichikov despairs when the governor-general tells him that the woman he hired to impersonate Khlobuyev’s aunt has testified against him. Chichikov begs mercy: First, he claims to have children, then he pleads an intention to have a family someday. He clings to the governor-general’s leg until he is dragged off to prison.

In a prison cell, Chichikov is depressed, since all of his money and paperwork are back in his room. To Chichikov’s surprise, Murazov enters, and Chichikov pours out a lament for his life of avarice. Chichikov claims that he only lived like this because a life of virtue has no rewards. As Chichikov sobs, Murazov tells him the real crime is his waste of his talents—anything he pursued as avidly as he did money could have yielded a better and more virtuous world. Chichikov promises to reform, if only Murazov can help him.

Murazov advises that the most important thing is for Chichikov to reform his life and live quietly away from temptations. Chichikov, suddenly remorseful, tells Murazov of his childhood, learning to only loving property, and his lack of morals. Murazov tells him to compensate for the fact that he has no conscience by simply devoting himself to doing good deeds. Chichikov promises to reform, and Murazov goes to intercede for him with the governor-general.

Just as Chichikov is beginning to imagine a new life, using his talents for good rather than corruption, Samosvistov, a civil servant sent by the corrupt lawyer, enters his cell. He tells Chichikov the bribe amount that can buy his freedom and brings Chichikov’s carrying case. Chichikov again dreams of a life of luxury, his earlier resolve forgotten.

Meanwhile, the case against Chichikov is unraveling thanks to the clever machinations of his lawyer. Samosvistov hides the witness to the forged will, and the lawyer ensures that all of the local officials are so busy denouncing each other’s corruption that the legal case is now impossibly tangled. The governor-general is preoccupied with other disasters, including peasant uprisings, a famine, and peasant rumors of the coming apocalypse. Murazov meets with the governor, telling him that the case against Chichikov is murky, and that disputes about the dead woman’s estate are inevitable given her vast wealth.

Murazov asserts that no one individual has a monopoly on vice or virtue, and suggests that Tentetnikov’s exile to Siberia as a political subversive is a sin in its own right, one the governor-general was responsible for by being too strict. Murazov offers to donate his own grain stores to help with the famine and to act as mediator with the restless peasants. He urges the prince to talk simply to the local notables, to appeal to their innate national character, as “Russians, even people of the worst sort, still have an instinct for fairness” (7051-52). He persuades the prince to free Chichikov.

Murazov sees Chichikov a final time, telling him to leave town before a new case against him can appear and to concentrate on the eternal damnation that may await them all. Chichikov buys a new red frock coat, and the narrator considers it possible he may become a new person after all.

The governor tells the local officials that given how tangled local affairs are, the only solution is to ask the tsar for a special court martial. He says true justice demands that he deal harshly with everyone in other local matters, even if the innocent suffer. He decries corruption as endangering the entire nation and urges them to take corruption as seriously as they did any invasion from Napoleon: “Everything will fail until each and every one of us senses that he, too, just as in the era of national uprising he took up arms against the enemy, must rise up against injustice and lies” (7139-40). The text abruptly ends as the governor-general alludes to the Bible, specifically, a section from Corinthians about the inability to know the full truth on earth.