Chichikov buys dead souls from Sobakevich in a scene where a transaction in deceased serfs turns into an absurd contest of valuation. Sobakevich treats the dead as saleable property and praises them as if their former labor were still available to the buyer; Chichikov, seeking a low price for people who exist only on the rolls, tries to make their death the decisive fact. Their agreement is reached not by resolving that contradiction but by bargaining through it, with a purchase deed and a detailed list set to carry the fiction into official form.

The Proposal and the Opening Price

The negotiation begins with Sobakevich listening, his heavy, ordinarily impassive appearance giving little outward sign of what he thinks. Chichikov cautiously asks whether he will sell dead souls. Sobakevich answers without surprise, as though the subject were grain, and says that they can be found. When Chichikov asks whether he would be willing to get rid of any he owns, Sobakevich readily agrees to sell. Only then does he raise his head slightly, apparently struck by the possibility that the proposed buyer expects some advantage from the deal.

Asked to name a price, Sobakevich proposes one hundred roubles per head. Chichikov stares at him in disbelief, then protests that the sum is excessive and asks for a genuine figure. Sobakevich offers no immediate retreat: his first position makes clear that he does not share the buyer’s assumption that dead serfs should be nearly worthless. The opening price sets the scene’s comic conflict in motion, as each man approaches the same nominally dead people through a different calculation of their value.

The Dead Men as Workers

Sobakevich supports his price by praising the trades and abilities of the deceased. He invokes the wheelwright Michiev, whose spring carts and varnishing he commends, and the carpenter Probka Stepan, whom he remembers as exceptionally strong and more than three arshins tall. He adds Milushkin, a bricklayer who could build a stove, Maksim Teliatnikov, a bootmaker whose work made sound boots despite his foul language, and Eremi Sorokoplechin, who worked in Moscow and paid a tax of five hundred roubles. Sobakevich presents the list as evidence of the quality of his stock, contrasting it with what Plushkin might sell.

Chichikov tries to interrupt with the obvious objection: Michiev and the others are dead, so their skills cannot now benefit anyone. He eventually states the contradiction outright, invoking the proverb, “A dead body is only good to prop a fence with.” Sobakevich concedes that the men are dead, but immediately asks what use there is in listing them as alive and dismisses them as flies rather than human beings. When Chichikov says they exist only in idea, Sobakevich refuses that reduction and returns to Michiev’s strength with heavy tools. His salesmanship insists on the reality of their former lives even as the transaction depends on their legally persistent status after death.

Haggling Over Worth

The bargaining moves through a sequence of incompatible measures. Chichikov says that he cannot pay more than two roubles per head. Sobakevich counters that he is offering the buyer good, genuine souls rather than old rubbish and continues to treat the men’s working lives as proof of their quality. Chichikov calls the negotiation like a stage comedy and asks what a dead soul is worth or useful for. The absurdity lies in the gap between the men’s positions: Sobakevich prices the deceased as if their abilities were still commodities, while Chichikov wants the legal transaction at the lowest possible cost.

Sobakevich eventually announces a last price of fifty roubles in assignats per head, calling it a loss because nowhere else could the buyer find better souls. Chichikov protests that anyone else would be glad to dispose of them rather than continue paying tax. Sobakevich answers by pointing out that such transactions are not generally permitted and that others might suspect a buyer of pursuing a doubtful advantage. The warning briefly brings the legal irregularity underlying their polite commercial language into view; neither man abandons the bargain.

After Chichikov rises as if to leave, Sobakevich quickly apologizes for having offended him and invites him to sit again. He then draws close and whispers a reduced offer of twenty-five roubles. Chichikov refuses even a quarter of that sum and will not advance another kopeck. Sobakevich asks for three roubles; Chichikov still refuses. The conversation’s repeated reversals turn a sale of dead people into a performance of insistence, retreat, and renewed demand, while the portrait of Bagration watches from the wall during a pause in the haggling.

Agreement and Documentation

Sobakevich finally says that, although the bargain means a dead loss to him and Chichikov has shown little generosity, he cannot refuse to please a friend. He asks whether a purchase deed should be prepared to put everything in order. Chichikov agrees. They decide to go to town the following day and arrange the signing, so the discussion ends with a concrete administrative next step even though the scene has not stated the final per-head price.

Chichikov then asks for a list of the peasants. Sobakevich readily goes to his writing desk and begins to compose one, recording both their names and their former qualifications. The document preserves precisely what the bargaining has made strange: men are dead, their trades are no longer usable, yet their names and past labor are written down to support their sale. The scene thus moves from spoken negotiation toward paperwork, the instrument by which the two men intend to make an anomalous transaction orderly on paper.

The Scene’s Central Irony

The exchange depends on the gap between human death and the continuing administrative value assigned to the deceased. Chichikov sees the dead souls as a purchase whose usefulness rests on their presence in the records; Sobakevich argues for their worth by recalling concrete work and strength, then treats their continued listing as a matter of little practical consequence to them. Their positions are not morally equivalent, but both turn the peasants into items of appraisal: one stresses the costs and possible advantage of the transfer, the other the quality of the people being sold.

The remembered occupations give the comedy a material edge. A cart builder, carpenter, bricklayer, and shoemaker emerge in Sobakevich’s speech as more vividly capable than the living buyers bargaining over their names. Yet that vividness serves the seller’s price argument, and the proposed deed will convert it into a record of property rather than a recovery of the workers’ lives. The scene’s decisive outcome is therefore both practical and satirical: the men agree to proceed with a formal sale, while the human evidence offered to justify the price only sharpens the incongruity of trading in people who are already dead.