Chichikov's deal with Manilov is the first explicit transaction in the scheme at the heart of “Dead Souls”: Chichikov asks to buy peasants who have died since the last census but remain officially listed as living, and Manilov agrees to surrender them without charge. The conversation turns a grotesque contradiction in the tax and property system into an apparently lawful transfer, while the pair’s sentimental display of friendship makes the transaction both comic and unsettling.

The Scheme Behind the Request

Under the serf system described in the novel, periodic censuses fixed the number of peasants for whom an owner remained liable to pay tax. A serf who died between censuses could therefore remain on the official rolls, and owners might borrow against such registered “souls” as though they were still alive. Chichikov’s plan is to acquire these names cheaply, present the fictitious population as a basis for credit, and use the resulting money to establish an estate and buy living serfs. The dead people are absent from the bargaining room, but their names and tax status have a market value.

That larger design makes Chichikov’s phrasing to Manilov important. Asked why he wants the list, he first says that he wishes to purchase a few peasants, then clarifies that he wants dead ones. He specifies that these are people Manilov returned as alive at the last census. The request does not conceal the essential fact from Manilov; rather, it tests whether the landowner will accept the transaction once its oddity has been stated plainly.

Manilov’s Shock and Reassurance

Manilov initially cannot make sense of what he has heard. He drops his pipe and stares at Chichikov, trying to decide whether his guest is joking or has lost his reason. Chichikov’s grave expression offers no sign of a joke, and Manilov’s first responses are marked by bewilderment rather than resistance. The scene holds on this pause: the proposal is legally and socially strange enough to leave the host unable to produce an ordinary reply.

Chichikov then insists that he means the dead peasants literally. He presents the intended transaction as above-board and reassures Manilov that the names can be transferred as living persons because that is how they appear in the census returns. He claims respect for civil law and describes an obligation as sacred. The claim is sharply at odds with the purpose of the scheme: the census entry supplies a formal cover for exploiting the discrepancy between administrative records and actual death. What reassures Manilov is not an account of the scheme’s ultimate purpose but Chichikov’s confident appeal to its documentary form.

An Unpaid Transfer and a Performance of Friendship

Once Manilov accepts the proposal, Chichikov raises the question of price. Manilov says he will surrender the dead souls unconditionally and pay the expenses of the sale himself, treating the concession as a gesture of friendship rather than a commercial exchange. Chichikov is visibly delighted: he nearly leaps from his chair, and his convulsive movement is forceful enough to split the chair’s upholstery. His exuberant reaction makes clear that Manilov’s generosity has materially improved the bargain.

Chichikov responds with an elaborate account of his supposed hardships, casting himself as a drifting, persecuted man who has kept an unsullied conscience and helped the helpless. He wipes away a tear. Manilov is moved, and the two men clasp hands and gaze into one another’s tear-filled eyes. The mutual tenderness is prolonged until Chichikov quietly withdraws his hand and returns to the practical matter of completing the purchase. The emotional scene thus accompanies, rather than replaces, the transfer: sentiment helps define their friendship, while Chichikov’s haste keeps the transaction moving.

Completion and Wider Significance

Chichikov takes his hat and prepares to leave for town to arrange the matter as quickly as possible. Manilov is surprised that he is departing so soon, and his wife, Lizanka, also expresses regret at the short visit. The deal consequently leads directly from a private conversation at the estate toward formal registration in the town. Chichikov’s later administrative approach reflects the same central method: acquired names must be entered on documents as peasants for transfer, and their recorded status allows the fiction to function within official procedure.

The episode establishes the transaction’s characteristic double movement. The people sold are dead, but the state’s records continue to treat them as taxable and transferable; the purchase is called lawful because it follows those records, even as the scheme turns their failure to reflect reality into an instrument of fraud. Manilov’s free gift adds another irony: a transaction designed to produce financial gain begins as an apparent act of selfless generosity. The scene’s comedy arises from the contrast between the monstrous premise and the gentle language, pipesmoke, hand-clasping, and tears through which the two men conduct their business.