Chichikov’s visit to General Betrishchev

Chichikov’s visit to General Betrishev is at once a diplomatic mission and a fraud: Chichikov offers to mend the General’s estrangement from Tientietnikov, then uses a fabricated family predicament to obtain dead souls. The encounter turns on his ability to make deception sound like tactful service. The General’s good humor secures the apparent transaction, while the narrator makes clear that its premise is false: Chichikov has no uncle.

A mission of reconciliation

Chichikov tells Tientietnikov that he will visit the General the next day and offer him an assurance of personal respect. Tientietnikov responds with astonishment and distrust, asking what purpose such a visit could serve. Chichikov’s stated aim is conciliatory: he will approach the man with whom Tientietnikov has fallen out, rather than leave the breach untouched.

At the General’s house, Chichikov introduces himself as Tientietnikov’s neighbor. The General frowns at the name, signaling that the proposed reconciliation begins in hostile territory. Chichikov hastily supplies the apology Tientietnikov has not himself delivered: he says his neighbor regrets failing to show proper respect for the General’s public service and claims that Tientietnikov repeats a wish that he had properly valued the men who saved their fatherland. This invented message reframes the quarrel as a lapse in respect, not an enduring rejection.

The General is mollified. He says he bears Tientietnikov no grudge, has always felt sincere liking and esteem for him, and believes he may yet become a useful member of society. Chichikov endorses this judgment, praising Tientietnikov as a man of worth, eloquent and skilled with the pen. The General answers with a joke at the expense of Tientietnikov’s writing, treating it as some kind of verses or other rubbish. The change in the General’s manner marks the success of Chichikov’s intervention: the meeting has moved from a frown to genial laughter, although the reconciliation is being conducted through words Chichikov has put into Tientietnikov’s mouth.

The invented uncle

Once the General’s warmth has been established, Chichikov asks permission to put a problem to him. He describes a decrepit uncle who owns three hundred souls and property worth two thousand roubles, has no heir but Chichikov, and is too infirm to manage his estate. Yet the uncle will not let his nephew manage it either. As Chichikov explains the supposed condition, the uncle demands that he first acquire as many souls as the uncle possesses; only then, he says, will he transfer the three hundred to him.

The contrivance converts Chichikov’s real request into a family dilemma. The dead souls are presented not as the object of a purchase but as the measure of an inheritance that the nephew must somehow earn. The General readily takes the bait, calling the uncle an absolute fool. Chichikov then adds a further complication: the old man has taken up with his housekeeper and had children by her, so the estate will now pass to them. The fabricated heirs intensify the story’s apparent urgency and make the supposed uncle’s condition seem more damaging to Chichikov.

Chichikov acknowledges that it grieves him to admit the man is his uncle, then asks the General to hand over the souls. The narrator immediately exposes the lie beneath this performance: Chichikov’s harder confession would be that he has no uncles at all. That disclosure overturns the family story without changing the General’s understanding of it. The invention is not a mistaken account or an embellished truth; it is the device that allows Chichikov to pursue his scheme under the cover of kinship.

The General’s offer and the scene’s break

The General understands Chichikov’s request as an extension of the joke. He identifies the dead souls and says that, in return for the jest, he will give Chichikov land as well—even the whole graveyard if he wants it. His offer transforms Chichikov’s fictional obstacle into an apparently generous solution: the General treats the request as comic play and responds with an extravagant gift.

The scene ends not with a formal deed or a completed transfer, but with the General’s laughter ringing through the house. The text then announces a long hiatus in the original. This interruption leaves the practical outcome unresolved in the narrated passage: the General has offered the dead souls, but the account does not proceed to show any transfer. The break also leaves the two strands of Chichikov’s visit side by side—the apparent repair of Tientietnikov’s standing and the concealed attempt to acquire souls—without resolving what either will produce.

Deception as social performance

Chichikov’s success depends on adapting his manner to the company before him. With Tientietnikov, he presents himself as a willing mediator; with the General, he speaks the language of public service, apology, kinship, inheritance, and comic absurdity. Each role makes the next step easier. The invented apology softens the General, and the softened mood allows Chichikov to introduce a story whose implausibility the General receives as entertainment rather than scrutiny.

The scene’s irony rests on the divide between what the participants believe and what the narration reveals. The General thinks he is indulging a joke and even offering land; Chichikov’s supposed uncle and inheritance are inventions; and the request for dead souls remains the practical center of the exchange. The fabricated family drama turns an acquisitive transaction into a social performance, while the General’s laughter helps conceal—without the reader’s knowledge being concealed—the fraud at its heart.