Governor

The Governor is not directly involved in the purchase of dead souls, yet he becomes central to the town’s most sensational explanation of it: that Chichikov intends to abduct the Governor’s daughter. The rumor makes the Governor both the imagined obstacle to the supposed romance and the authority whose household responds to it. Its force comes not from evidence but from invention, repetition, and the household’s decision to exclude Chichikov.

Identity and Position

The Governor appears in this episode chiefly through his family and his place at the center of provincial society. The town’s women imagine that he might have consented to a marriage between Chichikov and his daughter because Chichikov is reputedly rich; in another version, the Governor’s wife herself becomes an alleged intermediary in Chichikov’s courtship. Neither account is established as fact. They are incompatible inventions that expose how gossip supplies whatever backstory a story needs.

The Governor’s daughter is sixteen, and the Governor’s wife is described as the mother of a family and the town’s leading lady. These household roles give the rumor its social stakes: what begins as speculation about Chichikov’s business becomes an affront to the family’s reputation. The Governor himself is not shown confirming either version or taking part in the discussion. His presence in the rumor is instead inferred through what the town says he would have permitted, what his wife is alleged to have done, and what the household later orders.

The Rumor Takes Shape

A woman proposes that the dead-soul transaction is a fabrication intended to conceal Chichikov’s real aim: abducting the Governor’s daughter. The startling claim is received with genuine amazement, not tested against reliable information. That reaction helps the accusation travel: its improbability gives it dramatic force, while the supposed connection to the already baffling purchase of dead souls makes it seem like an explanation.

When the Public Prosecutor enters, the women relay both elements—the dead-soul purchases and the alleged abduction—and then leave to spread the news through town. Within half an hour, the account has circulated widely enough to draw the public officials into confusion. Discussion divides into a men’s faction focused on the dead souls and a women’s faction focused on the daughter. The rumor does not merely add a second topic; it reorganizes the town’s response to Chichikov around rival interpretations of his conduct.

Competing Stories and Household Consequences

The women’s faction gives the supposed abduction a succession of mutually inconsistent explanations. In one account, Chichikov and the daughter have met by moonlight; the Governor would have consented to their marriage because Chichikov is wealthy, but Chichikov has deserted an earlier wife, who has written the Governor a moving letter. The narrator explicitly notes that how the women learned of this supposed marriage remains a mystery.

Another circle rejects the claim that Chichikov has a wife. It alleges instead that he first pursued the Governor’s wife, hoping through her to secure the daughter’s hand; when she refused on religious and conscientious grounds, he supposedly decided on abduction. The two versions disagree about the most basic facts, yet each presents its own elaborations as proof. As the story spreads to more distant corners of town, further supposed evidence is appended, making circulation itself appear to confirm the claim.

When the story reaches the Governor’s wife, she is offended by the insinuations about her household. Her response has immediate consequences for her innocent daughter, who must endure an unpleasant private conversation, and for Chichikov: the Swiss footman is ordered never to admit him. The rumor thus moves beyond talk and becomes a household rule, despite no demonstrated abduction plan or established courtship.

Exclusion and Narrative Significance

Chichikov later approaches the Governor’s residence intending to visit. The Swiss footman recognizes him but refuses entry, explaining that he has been ordered to admit anyone rather than Monsieur Chichikov. The servant’s obedience makes the rumor’s consequence concrete: Chichikov’s access to a house where he had previously been received is abruptly withdrawn. The footman also interprets the refusal as a sign that the gentry regard the visitor as a rogue, illustrating how a private order can carry a broader social judgment.

The Governor’s role is therefore defined less by personal action than by the gap between the family’s actual response and the town’s invented accounts of its motives. The rumor turns wealth into a supposed qualification for marriage, household authority into material for speculation, and a mysterious financial transaction into a melodrama of courtship and abduction. Its contradictory versions do not weaken its effects: they culminate in the Governor’s household shutting Chichikov out, revealing how swiftly a circulating story can acquire practical force without acquiring truth.