Chichikov’s reputation as a millionaire

Chichikov’s reputation as a millionaire is a social fiction produced by the apparent scale of his purchases, but it has tangible effects: the officials and townspeople of N. become more eager to welcome him, women and merchants respond to the promise of wealth, and curiosity about his affairs helps spread the rumors that eventually provoke an official inquiry. The irony is that the reputation supplies the public standing his scheme requires while making him increasingly conspicuous.

From Purchases to Reputation

Chichikov’s transactions are discussed as soon as they become known. Some citizens wonder whether buying peasants for transfer to another province is prudent; others advise him to travel with an escort for the safety of his purchased convoy. He answers that an escort is unnecessary because the peasants are peaceable and willing to move. His explanation presents the purchases as an ordinary relocation, while the public’s concern gives the enterprise an unexpected result: people begin treating him as a man of considerable means.

The narrator states the transformation directly: Chichikov comes to be regarded as a millionaire. The label is not presented as proof that he possesses a fortune. It is an inference drawn from the activity visible to the town, and its social force does not depend on whether the inference is sound. The townspeople, already favorably disposed toward him, like him still more once they attach wealth to his name.

Social Credit and Public Performance

The town’s welcome rests on more than financial calculation. Its officials are described as hospitable, easy-going people who readily extend friendship to a guest after sharing food or an evening with him. The millionaire reputation intensifies that existing sociability: Chichikov’s agreeable manners and practiced attentiveness now appear alongside a status that makes him especially attractive to his hosts. Earlier, he had cultivated municipal connections by calling on the Governor, the Vice-Governor, the Public Prosecutor, the President of the Local Council, and other officials, flattering each in turn. His new standing therefore amplifies a network of goodwill he had already worked to establish.

The talk of his purchases also makes departure difficult. Citizens suggest that he accept an escort, and their repeated insistence that he remain threatens to keep him in town. The reputation thus acts as a kind of social credit: it buys him attention and affection, but also binds him more closely to the community whose approval he has gained.

Wealth, Desire, and Consumption

The narrator distinguishes the millionaire’s reputation from Chichikov’s personal character. The word itself exerts an influence on decent people and scoundrels alike. It attracts not only those who calculate what wealth might yield, but also people whose deference is less consciously self-interested: they smile, remove their hats, and seek invitations to houses where a millionaire is expected to dine. The episode makes status visible as a force that reorganizes ordinary manners around an imagined fortune.

Among the women of N., the new label prompts renewed discussion of Chichikov’s appearance and suitability as a husband. Some say that although he is not handsome, he is good-looking enough, perhaps only needing to be more stout. Their remarks about him are accompanied by disparaging comparisons of lean husbands to toothbrushes. At the same time, the Bazaar fills with women shoppers and carriages; expensive fabrics that merchants had been unable to sell suddenly find buyers. One woman’s bustle is so large that, during Mass, the verger asks commoners to withdraw to the porch lest the crush soil her clothes. The millionaire’s social aura therefore reaches beyond conversation: it stimulates conspicuous consumption and reshapes public space.

Chichikov himself notices the attention. At the inn he finds an anonymous letter beginning with the writer’s insistence that she must write to him, describing a bond of sympathy between two souls and inviting him away from the city. Its sentimental language and elaborate pauses turn the supposed millionaire into an object of private fantasy as well as public speculation. The writer is not identified, and the episode does not establish a relationship; it shows instead how quickly his newly elevated status invites imagined intimacy.

Rumor, Suspicion, and Exposure

The circulation of information that elevates Chichikov also becomes dangerous. Two women pass stories about his purchases of dead souls and an alleged plan to abduct the Governor’s daughter to the Public Prosecutor, then hurry off in different directions to spread the news. Within half an hour, the town has been thrown into confusion. Men and women divide the rumors between them: the men debate the dead souls, while the women elaborate the supposed abduction into competing, increasingly definite accounts. Chichikov’s prominence has made his affairs material for collective invention.

The officials try to establish who he is, but their inquiries produce little certainty. They question people connected to the transactions, summon witnesses for the formal documentation, and seek information through the servants. The Public Prosecutor receives elaborate assurances from Manilov and Sobakevitch, but these do not clarify the underlying business. Chichikov’s servant Petrushka offers only the smell of his living quarters as an answer, while Selifan says that his master has worked for the state and served in Customs. The officials remain ignorant of his identity, yet decide that he must be someone—and debate whether he should be detained or might instead be capable of detaining them.

The later investigation confirms the double edge of reputation. In the midst of competing claims about an inheritance and the validity of wills, authorities uncover information about Chichikov’s dead-soul purchases and his involvement with contraband during his Customs service. Matters he believed known only to himself and four walls have reached the investigators. The millionaire image had made him welcome and conspicuous; once suspicions spread, that same visibility helps draw his concealed history into public scrutiny. His reputation is therefore neither a secure possession nor a simple disguise: it is a social effect that advances his fortunes for a time while enlarging the audience capable of questioning them.