Afanasy Vassilievich Murazov

Afanasy Vassilievich Murazov, the local Commissioner of Taxes, is presented as both a figure of extraordinary wealth and a moral alternative to the world of acquisition that has shaped Chichikov. His importance lies not simply in possessing money or influence, but in the standard by which he judges their use: wealth and ability matter only when joined to honest labor and service. He brings that standard to Khlobuev in a moment of renewed poverty and to Chichikov in prison, where remorse has left the latter physically and emotionally broken.

Identity and Reputation

Murazov is identified as the local Commissioner of Taxes, a man whom another character describes as possessing genuine intellect and as being worthy of directing an estate—or even the Empire. The praise imagines him as a potential Minister of Finance, making his administrative standing part of his reputation for sound judgment. He is not merely a name invoked from a distance: Chichikov has heard of him before, and the scale of his fortune is a subject of astonished conversation.

The reported estimates of Murazov’s wealth rise sharply. Chichikov has heard that he has acquired ten million roubles; his interlocutor corrects him, saying the sum is more than forty million and predicting that soon half of Russia will be in his hands. The exchange makes wealth seem almost ungraspable, but it also sets up a contrast: Murazov’s fortune commands attention, yet his later counsel insists that money alone cannot make a life rightly ordered. His own significance in the story is ethical as much as economic.

Counsel to Khlobuev

Murazov takes Khlobuev to his rooms and asks him plainly how his affairs stand, including whether his aunt left him anything. Khlobuev explains that he received fifty souls and thirty thousand roubles from Madame Khanasarova, but that both had to be surrendered to satisfy his debts. He is destitute again, and says that trickery attended the inheritance. In the same account, he begins to accuse Chichikov of involvement in the wrongdoing, placing Murazov in the position of hearing a grievance that bears directly on the man he will later visit in prison.

The conversation turns from financial circumstance to faith and work. Khlobuev says that he trusts in divine compassion even though he feels foul and lowly, abandoned by others, and betrayed by a friend who claims to have acted for a good end. Murazov answers that Khlobuev should heed the merciful, but adds that honest toil is as meritorious in the eyes of the All-Merciful as prayer. Whatever task falls to him—even cleaning a floor—should be done as though it were being done for God. Work, in this account, is not a route to status or easy prosperity; it is a discipline that leaves less room for card playing, feasting, and the distractions of worldly life.

To make the counsel concrete, Murazov invokes Ivan Potapitch, whom Khlobuev knows and respects. Potapitch had once been a merchant worth half a million roubles. Seeking gain in everything, he prospered enough to send his son to be educated in France and marry his daughter to a General, while spending whole days drinking with friends at taverns. After bankruptcy and other misfortunes, he had to begin again and became Murazov’s steward. Murazov presents this changed station not as a final defeat: Potapitch’s affairs are again in order, and he could have returned to business with half a million roubles. Yet he chooses to remain a steward. The example gives visible form to Murazov’s teaching: recovery need not mean reclaiming wealth or rank; a person can find a worthy life in work accepted and performed conscientiously.

Visit to Chichikov in Prison

Murazov’s counsel is tested when Chichikov is arrested and taken to a cell. The room is damp and mouldy, with a barred window, an unvarnished table, two poor chairs, and a broken stove that lets smoke out but gives no heat. Chichikov has been allowed to bring neither necessities nor his dispatch-box, which contains his booty; the deeds for the dead souls are in the hands of an official. Separated from the property that represented his scheme, he rolls on the floor as remorse seizes him. He decides that another twenty-four hours of this misery would leave no Chichikov alive in the world.

Murazov enters the prison an hour after Chichikov arrives. The visit is described as a deliverance to a man overwhelmed by grief: Chichikov rises from the floor, clasps Murazov’s hand, kisses it, and presses it to his breast, calling him his deliverer and saying that God will reward him for visiting an unfortunate wretch. Murazov’s presence offers relief and human attention, but it does not erase the legal crisis or restore Chichikov’s confiscated property.

When Chichikov breaks down again, the contrast between his former self and his present state becomes stark. He tears away the ragged remains of his frockcoat and pulls handfuls of hair from his carefully tended head, as if physical pain could quiet his mental anguish. Murazov watches in silence before answering with a diagnosis that is moral rather than merely practical: Chichikov could have achieved much had he devoted the energy and patience spent on unworthy objects to good ends. Murazov says that Chichikov has sinned not only against others but against himself and the rich gifts and opportunities entrusted to him. Though originally destined to rise, he has wandered from the path and fallen.

Limits, Mercy, and Moral Significance

Chichikov responds by clasping Murazov’s hands and promising to lead a different life if Murazov can restore his freedom and recover his lost property. His plea reveals the limits of his repentance at this point: the promise is attached to escape and restitution of what he has lost. Murazov refuses to pretend that personal compassion can simply undo the consequences. He says that freeing Chichikov would require setting aside a law, and that the Prince is a strict administrator who would not release him on any consideration.

Murazov therefore occupies a careful middle ground between condemnation and exoneration. He treats Chichikov as a person capable of better action, but names the waste and self-betrayal behind his wrongdoing; he visits and consoles him, but does not promise an unlawful rescue. His advice to Khlobuev and his rebuke to Chichikov share the same principle: moral renewal begins in how a person uses the capacities and circumstances available to him. In one case, that means accepting humble work rather than chasing lost wealth; in the other, it means recognizing that ingenuity and patience have been misdirected. Murazov’s role is thus to make mercy demanding: it offers a way back through honest labor and changed purpose, not an escape from responsibility.