Chichikov’s purchase of Khlobuev’s estate

Chichikov’s purchase of Khlobuev’s estate is a negotiation over a damaged property that also exposes the difference between productive stewardship and acquisitive calculation. The estate’s losses make its condition a matter of human as well as financial accounting: only half of the hundred serfs registered at the last revision survive, and some of those have fled. Chichikov accepts the sale, but his bargaining and efforts to delay payment reveal how instinctively he treats money as something to retain, even when another person’s need is pressing.

The Estate’s Condition and Asking Price

Chichikov asks Khlobuev to name the lowest price, explaining that the estate is in worse condition than he expected. Khlobuev confirms that it is in a terrible state and supplies the central figures: of the hundred souls listed at the previous revision, only fifty remain alive after cholera; others have absconded. Pursuing the fugitives through legal process could consume so much in costs that the property would pass altogether into the authorities’ hands. Khlobuev therefore asks thirty-five thousand roubles.

The stated price reflects more than a count of surviving workers. The estate’s registered population and its actual condition have diverged, while legal action against the absconded would threaten the property itself. The purchase thus takes place within a system where people appear in both human and fiscal terms: the missing and dead affect the estate’s value, and the paperwork does not simply describe the circumstances on the ground.

Bargaining and Intervention

Chichikov immediately tries to reduce the price from thirty-five thousand to twenty-five thousand roubles. Platon objects that the estate is worth the amount Khlobuev named and urges Chichikov to accept it. He makes the objection consequential by saying that he and his brother-in-law would buy the property together if Chichikov would not pay the asking price. Faced with that alternative, Chichikov agrees to thirty-five thousand.

Agreement on the price does not settle the transaction. Chichikov asks to defer half the purchase money for a year, but Khlobuev refuses, explaining that he needs the money to redeem the mortgage. The immediate demand for payment puts the buyer’s preferred timetable against the seller’s financial need. Platon’s intervention has already prevented the price from being driven lower; Khlobuev’s mortgage now makes delay a practical matter rather than a harmless detail.

The Payment and Chichikov’s Reluctance

Chichikov says that he has only ten thousand roubles available. The narration makes clear that this is false: including the money borrowed from Kostanzhoglo, he has twenty thousand at his disposal. His hesitation is not simply an inability to pay; he dislikes making a large payment all at once. Khlobuev presses for at least fifteen thousand immediately, and Platon offers to lend Chichikov the additional five thousand.

The final arrangement is still drawn out. Chichikov’s dispatch-box is brought from the carriage, and Khlobuev receives ten thousand roubles. Chichikov promises that the remaining five thousand will arrive the next day, but only after first proposing to pay three thousand then and postpone the balance for another two or three days, perhaps longer. The dispatch-box makes the negotiation tangible: money is present, yet Chichikov’s instinct is to release it as slowly as possible. The purchase proceeds through an immediate payment, a promise, and Platon’s loan rather than through a clean settlement in full.

The Scene’s Moral Contrast

The narration frames Chichikov’s delay as a recognizable habit of dealing with petitioners: people are made to wait, while those controlling the money fail to reckon with how costly each hour may be to someone in need. In this transaction, Khlobuev’s need is concrete—he requires funds to redeem his mortgage—yet Chichikov negotiates over the timing even after the price has been settled and even though he has more available than he admits. The passage makes the small postponements morally legible without disguising them as a grand fraud: his reluctance is ordinary, self-protective, and persistent.

That behavior stands against the ethic of work associated with Kostanzhoglo. He describes estate management as continuous, seasonal labor: preparing seed and assigning workers before spring; ploughing, sowing, and planting as the land becomes workable; reaping in summer; storing grain and preparing buildings for winter; and tending mills, workshops, and workers’ dwellings in the colder months. In his account, a landowner’s satisfaction comes not merely from increased wealth but from seeing that the work has brought things into being. Set beside that vision, Chichikov’s purchase is a property transaction marked by haggling, concealment, and reluctance to pay. The scene gives the acquisition an unresolved significance: ownership is secured, but the conduct of the buyer offers no assurance that he will approach the estate through the sustained labor Kostanzhoglo praises.