Chichikov’s imprisonment and legal crisis

Chichikov’s imprisonment and legal crisis turns the exposure of his concealed dealings into an immediate confrontation with state power. An investigation prompted by the Khanasarova inheritance uncovers evidence of his dead-soul purchases and earlier customs-service contraband; summoned before the Governor-General, he is denounced as a habitual fraudster and sent to prison. There, stripped of his papers and the appearance of prosperity, he confronts the loss of his booty and the onset of remorse, while Murazov’s unexpected arrival opens a narrow possibility of help.

Investigation and Exposure

The legal crisis develops amid competing claims over the immense property left by Madam Khanasarova. Pleas reach the authorities, and relatives previously unknown to the proceedings begin to appear. Rumours spread concerning the validity of both wills, larceny, and the concealment of funds. In the course of the inquiry, information also surfaces about Chichikov’s purchase of dead souls and his connivance at contraband goods during his service in the Customs Department. The investigation reaches beyond the inheritance dispute to encompass the history he had thought securely private.

The account emphasizes the breadth of the authorities’ knowledge while leaving the route by which they obtained it unexplained. Chichikov believes that certain matters are known only to himself and the walls around him, yet evidence of them has reached the officials. For a time their inquiries remain beyond his knowledge. A confidential friend eventually warns that legal trouble may be pending, while assuring him that everything will be attended to. Chichikov takes comfort in the reassuring tone rather than grasping the danger the letter signals; the summons soon makes that danger undeniable.

The Governor-General’s Summons

The arrest interrupts Chichikov at a moment when he is absorbed in his new clothes. A gendarme arrives with orders that he present himself before the Governor-General. Chichikov is taken in a coach with a gendarme beside him, still wearing the smoked-grey suit shot with flame colour that had just been the focus of his pleasure. At the Governor-General’s residence, an aide-de-camp directs him straight into the Prince’s study, a room crowded with portfolios, ledgers, and dispatch-boxes. The formal setting of records and official authority makes clear that this is no casual encounter.

The Governor-General reminds Chichikov that he had once shown clemency by allowing him to remain in town when he ought to have been imprisoned. In return, he says, Chichikov has resumed fraud, and fraud of a particularly dishonourable kind. Chichikov asks what offence is meant, trembling, and then offers to tell the whole truth, admitting guilt while claiming that rascals led him astray. The Governor-General rejects that explanation: the recorded felonies, he insists, are too numerous to be inventions, and Chichikov has never earned even a kopeck except through trickery and theft. He declares that Chichikov will be taken from the room to prison and held with other rogues and thieves until trial.

The Governor-General’s denunciation turns on a sharp contrast between Chichikov and the poor prisoners who will be his companions. They wear smocks and sheepskins; Chichikov stands before him in expensive, conspicuous clothing. The unfinished accusation and the Prince’s glance at the suit make appearance part of the judgment. Chichikov’s carefully assembled image of respectability cannot protect him; in this room, it underlines the distance between his polished presentation and the crimes attributed to him.

Arrest and Imprisonment

As the Governor-General calls for Chichikov’s removal, Chichikov begs for mercy and appeals to the Prince’s position as a family man and to the supposed claims of his aged mother. He then clasps the Governor-General’s knees and refuses to leave until mercy is granted. His grip is so tenacious that the Prince is dragged along the floor; shuddering with aversion, the Governor-General kicks Chichikov on the nose. Two gendarmes tear him away and hurry him out, pale and dishevelled, in a half-conscious state. The arrest makes his loss of control physical: the man who had manoeuvred among officials is now carried from the room by force.

On the threshold, Chichikov sees Murazov and breaks free of the escort long enough to throw himself at the old man’s feet. He cries that he is being taken to prison and death, but the gendarmes seize him again before he can hear Murazov’s reply. The encounter offers hope without yet changing the outcome: Chichikov has found a potential advocate, but he is still removed under guard.

The cell makes the reversal complete. It is damp and mouldy, reeks of soldiers’ boots and leggings, and contains an unvarnished table, two poor chairs, a barred window, and a cracked stove that lets smoke out without giving heat. Chichikov is not allowed to bring even necessities with him. His dispatch-box, containing his booty, remains behind in the hands of an official, along with the indenture deeds for the dead souls. His imprisonment thus separates him from both the possessions he has accumulated and the documents on which his enterprise depended.

Remorse and the Prospect of Help

Thinking of the confiscated dispatch-box and deeds, Chichikov rolls on the floor as remorse begins to gnaw at him. The narration presents this as more than fear of punishment: the loss of his schemes’ material instruments leaves him exposed to the consequences he had kept at a distance. He concludes that if he must endure another twenty-four hours of such misery, Chichikov will no longer exist. The language makes the cell a crisis of survival as well as a legal confinement, though the immediate account does not say that he acts on this thought.

An hour after Chichikov arrives, the prison doors open to admit Murazov. Chichikov rises from the floor, takes the old man’s hand, kisses it, and presses it to his bosom before bursting into tears. He calls Murazov his deliverer and says that God will reward him for visiting an unfortunate wretch. The emotional intensity marks Murazov’s presence as an immediate reprieve from isolation, but it does not itself establish that Chichikov has been released or that the legal case is resolved. The crisis at this point remains open: official prosecution has begun, the evidence reaches into Chichikov’s earlier career, and the first hope of intervention arrives inside the prison rather than from the authorities who sent him there.