Chichikov and his father’s relationship

Chichikov and his father’s relationship is brief, stern, and formative: the father’s last instructions turn money into a dependable substitute for human loyalty, and the son carries that lesson into adulthood. Chichikov never sees him again, but the injunction to save every kopeck becomes a rule by which he disciplines himself and pursues a vision of material comfort.

A parting that fixes the terms

When Chichikov is still a boy, his father takes him to a county town to attend school. Their journey lasts a day and a half, with a night at a roadside inn and a meal of cold pie and roast mutton. At their destination, the boy is left with an elderly relative in a modest courtyard, among fruit bushes, a couple of apple trees in blossom, and a dirty little shed. His father does not linger: after one night’s rest, he prepares to return home.

There are no tears at the parting. The father gives the boy a copper or two, then makes clear that practical advice matters more. He tells him to study, avoid idleness, and, above all, please his teachers; diligence, he says, can bring progress even if the boy lacks natural ability. The emphasis is not on affection expressed through closeness, but on a set of rules meant to equip the child for advancement.

Money as the dependable companion

The father’s instructions extend beyond schoolwork to the boy’s dealings with other people. He warns him not to associate too much with classmates, but, if he does, to choose the richer ones because they may prove useful later. Chichikov is told not to treat or entertain others, but to arrange matters so that others treat him. The advice frames friendship in terms of advantage and future utility rather than mutual generosity.

Its sharpest principle is the command to preserve every kopeck. People and comrades may abandon a person in adversity, the father warns, but money will not fail; with money, nothing is unattainable. This is not merely a recommendation to be prudent. It gives the child a model of security in which currency is more reliable than human attachment. The father embraces him and departs, and the text makes the separation final: Chichikov never sees his parent again, though the words sink deeply into his soul.

The lesson carried into adulthood

At school, Chichikov proves diligent and neat rather than exceptionally gifted. He learns the practical workings of social exchange early: he accepts gifts from classmates without returning them and sometimes keeps presents in order to sell them. He saves the small sum given at parting, and adds to it by making and selling a painted wax bullfinch. The boy’s conduct gives the father’s advice a visible continuation: saving is not an abstract maxim but a habit practiced through small opportunities.

As an adult, Chichikov’s strictness with money does not arise from an innate delight in hoarding. He can feel sympathy and compassion, and would have helped his former teacher if doing so had not required him to break into the fund he had resolved to preserve. The conflict makes the father’s influence especially clear: Chichikov’s rule has hardened into a boundary that can override an immediate claim on his generosity.

The text distinguishes this rule from love of money for its own sake. Chichikov saves in expectation of a future filled with carriages, an elegant house, and refined dinners. Wealth and plenty leave a lasting impression on him; when he sees a rich man in a handsome drozhki, he pauses to imagine the position that money has made possible. His father’s lesson thus supplies the discipline, while the son’s own ambitions supply the desired reward.

A private inheritance with public consequences

The father’s influence reaches beyond household advice into Chichikov’s approach to work and advancement. After leaving school, Chichikov is eager to enter the Civil Service, though it takes time to obtain even a minor post paying thirty or forty roubles a year. He responds with patience and economy, working from early morning until late at night copying official documents, sometimes sleeping on tables in the government building and dining with the watchman. The same self-denial that began with the saved parting coins is carried into his attempt to make a career.

The relationship therefore survives less as a continuing bond than as an internalized doctrine. Its effects are not presented as a simple inheritance of miserliness: Chichikov can feel for others, but measures aid against the protected reserve and the future pleasures that reserve is meant to secure. The father’s warning that a kopeck will not desert him becomes both a source of endurance and a limit on generosity, helping explain how Chichikov can pursue material advancement with patience while treating human ties as uncertain and money as reliable.