Chichikov buys dead souls and runaway serfs from Plyushkin in a transaction that turns census records, unpaid taxes, and human displacement into convertible property. He agrees to take on the tax obligation attached to 120 deceased serfs and acquires a paper list of their names; he then buys 78 runaways for cash. The scene advances his scheme by exploiting the gap between recorded population and actual life, while making the two men’s opposed calculations—Chichikov’s acquisitive ingenuity and Plyushkin’s desperate hoarding—meet in a single bargain.

Causes and Circumstances

The transaction depends on a system in which a serf remained taxable after death if still recorded on the last revision list. Owners paid tax on those registered souls until a new census, and the records could also provide a basis for borrowing against them. Chichikov’s plan was to buy the dead at reduced prices, assemble a fictitious population, and use it as collateral for a substantial loan. His purchases from Plyushkin apply that larger design to one estate’s particular losses.

Plyushkin initially describes the estate through scarcity and complaint. He claims that fever has killed his serfs wholesale over the preceding three years and insists that his supposed thousand souls would leave little after taxes. He specifies that since the last census he has paid taxes on 120 people who have died. Chichikov recognizes the number’s value to his scheme; his surprise is so marked that he sits open-mouthed. The same deaths that impoverish Plyushkin under the tax system become an opportunity for the buyer.

The Purchase of the Deceased

Rather than offer sympathy alone, Chichikov proposes to assume the taxes due on the deceased serfs. He presents this as practical help, contrasting his offer with the empty expressions of compassion Plyushkin says he receives from a kinsman who calls him uncle and kisses his hand. Plyushkin’s astonishment interrupts the exchange, but he soon asks whether Chichikov has served in the military. Chichikov answers cautiously that he has been in the Civil Service.

The arrangement is formalized as a purchase deed that treats the dead as though they were alive and had been sold to Chichikov. Chichikov also undertakes to bear the expenses of the transfer, anticipating Plyushkin’s complaints about lawyers’ fees. This is not simply a cash sale: Chichikov assumes the continuing tax liability in exchange for ownership on paper. Plyushkin, who first looks momentarily moved, quickly returns to his guarded, calculating manner; the bargain converts his obligation into a transfer while leaving the fiction of living ownership intact.

The list itself gives the transaction its documentary substance. Plyushkin retrieves a much-scribbled paper from among dusty packages in a cupboard, sneezing dust over his guest as he rummages. The document contains the names of all 120 deceased peasants, packed closely together. Chichikov takes it and says that completing the transaction requires a return to town. The paper is simultaneously an inventory of people and the instrument by which the two men can treat them as an asset.

The Runaways and the Cash Bargain

The deal expands when Plyushkin asks whether Chichikov knows anyone who might use a few runaway serfs. He says his son-in-law has reported them missing but that their tracks have grown cold; he estimates their number at about seventy, then corrects this to 78. Plyushkin complains that some flee every year and describes them as well-fed and idle, even as he says he himself scarcely has enough to eat. His account turns the runaways into another burden he wants to shed.

Plyushkin says he will accept whatever price Chichikov cares to offer, adding that a living serf on the census list is worth 500 roubles and that finding even twenty runaways would repay a buyer handsomely. Chichikov does not pass the opportunity to others. He says the legal expenses would make the business unattractive to a friend, then offers Plyushkin money himself. The proposed payment begins at 25 kopecks per soul; after bargaining, Chichikov calculates 78 at 30 kopecks each as 24 roubles and 96 kopecks. The narrative notes that the correct total is 23 roubles and 40 kopecks, so Chichikov’s arithmetic would overpay by 1 rouble and 56 kopecks. Plyushkin receives the cash with conspicuous caution and stores it in one of his money bags.

Completion and Immediate Aftermath

Plyushkin asks Chichikov to deliver a letter to the President of the Council, whom he calls an old school friend. He also tries to offer tea, but the expense of sugar soon prompts him to cancel the samovar and consider putting the sugar away himself. These gestures frame the bargain’s aftermath: even after receiving money and transferring tax liability, Plyushkin remains governed by minute economies and suspicion. As Chichikov leaves, Plyushkin escorts him to the courtyard gates, then closes them and resumes inspecting the estate and reprimanding servants.

Once alone, Plyushkin thinks of giving Chichikov a damaged silver watch as a present, imagining that a young man might need one for his betrothed. The thought follows the sale but does not undo its terms; it reveals the strange mixture of gratitude and possessiveness through which Plyushkin interprets the encounter. For Chichikov, the completed purchase adds another set of names to the fictitious population he is assembling. For Plyushkin, it relieves the burden of taxes on the dead and disposes of the runaways for a small sum.

Significance Within the Plot

The episode makes the mechanism of Chichikov’s enterprise concrete. A census list preserves the dead as taxable units; the purchase deed represents them as living property; and Chichikov’s promise to pay taxes transforms the owners’ continuing liability into his opportunity. The 120 deceased and 78 runaways are different categories in the bargain, but both are converted into entries and amounts rather than encountered as individual lives. The scene’s precise figures and paperwork expose how the administrative system enables the fraud without requiring the records themselves to change.

The transaction also continues the book’s episodic road through provincial estates, where each negotiation gives Chichikov a new encounter and a new set of names. Its comic details—the dust-filled cupboard, the wildly close-packed list, the argument over a few kopecks, and the sugar Plyushkin almost returns—do not soften the material stakes. Instead, they make the larger contradiction visible: the dead remain economically active because the state continues to count them, while the living runaways are priced according to their recorded status and potential use. Chichikov’s purchase succeeds by treating this contradiction not as an obstacle but as the foundation of his scheme.