Chichikov's deal with Nozdryov falls through because Nozdryov will neither make a straightforward sale of the dead serfs nor keep the negotiation within the bounds Chichikov needs. A request for names on the revision list becomes a sequence of evasions, wagers, suspected cheating, and threatened violence; Chichikov escapes only when an official arrives. The failed transaction matters beyond its immediate danger: Nozdryov carries the story into public society, helping transform a private scheme into the talk and alarm of the provincial town.

The proposed transaction

At the tavern, Chichikov first seeks rest for the horses and food for himself. The narrator contrasts the hearty appetites of middle-class travelers with the dietary fussiness of wealthy people in St. Petersburg and Moscow, then describes the inviting wooden tavern. This pause in the journey leads to Nozdryov’s estate and a visit whose hospitable surface soon proves unreliable.

The meal at Nozdryov’s house is as disorderly as the host. Some dishes are overcooked, others barely cooked, and the cook appears to have thrown in whatever ingredients came to hand. Nozdryov pours generously for his guests, but Chichikov notices that the host gives himself much less of the supposed blend of burgundy and champagne. He quietly spills his own glass rather than drink it. The scene establishes the caution with which Chichikov must approach a man who is convivial in manner but difficult to trust.

When Chichikov asks whether Nozdryov has many dead serfs still named on the revision list, Nozdryov confirms that he does and demands to know why Chichikov wants them. Chichikov asks him to transfer the names. The obstacle is not simply a difference over price: Nozdryov presses for the purpose of the purchase, while Chichikov needs to conceal the actual design behind it.

Evasive explanations and refused terms

Chichikov first claims that acquiring the dead souls would improve his social standing, since he has little landed property and only a small number of serfs. Nozdryov immediately calls this a lie. Recognizing that the excuse is weak, Chichikov then offers a second account: he says he is thinking of marrying, but his prospective bride’s ambitious parents expect the bridegroom to possess at least three hundred souls, while he has only half that number. Nozdryov again rejects the explanation as false. The two stories show Chichikov trying to make a suspicious purchase legible through conventional social motives, and Nozdryov refusing to accept even a plausible pretext.

Nozdryov will not sell the names outright. Instead, he proposes that they stake the dead souls, along with his barrel-organ, in a game of banker. Chichikov declines, saying that leaving the result to cards would mean submitting to the unknown. His wariness is not abstract: he covertly watches Nozdryov handle the pack and finds the way he cuts it suspicious. Nozdryov treats refusal as a breach of friendship, but Chichikov’s refusal keeps the transaction from being placed in a game whose rules he cannot trust.

The next morning Nozdryov renews the offer to play for the souls. Chichikov again says that he does not play cards and will buy them if they are for sale. Nozdryov again refuses a sale as improper between friends, while insisting that a game of banker would be different. The exchange makes the impasse explicit: Chichikov wants a purchase, Nozdryov wants a contest, and their supposed friendship supplies pressure rather than trust.

The game becomes a confrontation

Nozdryov also steers the dispute toward chess. Chichikov says it has been a long time since he played, but agrees to move pieces. As Nozdryov repeats that he knows Chichikov’s poor play, his sleeve dislodges a chessman. Chichikov objects and asks him to put the piece back. The apparent accident turns their contest into a direct test of Nozdryov’s honesty; the proposed game cannot serve as a fair substitute for the refused sale.

When Chichikov finally states that he will not play, Nozdryov approaches him and raises his fist. Chichikov raises his hands to protect his face and seizes Nozdryov’s whirling arms, holding him fast. Nozdryov calls for his servants, Porphyri and Pavlushka. Chichikov lets go, partly to avoid making the servants witnesses to the scene and partly because he sees no advantage in continuing to restrain their master. The servants enter as the argument moves beyond bargaining into physical danger.

Nozdryov accuses Chichikov of refusing to finish because he is losing, grabs the cherrywood shank of his pipe, and orders the servants to thrash him. Chichikov turns pale and cannot speak. The narrator expands the threat through an elaborate mock-heroic comparison to a reckless officer charging an impregnable fortress, only to reverse the image: the supposed fortress, Chichikov, is panicked and powerless. The servants wrest his chair away, and Nozdryov advances with the pipe as Chichikov tries to parry him. Violence is interrupted by the sound of a collar-bell, approaching wheels, and a team stopping at the entrance.

Escape and wider repercussions

The visitor is the Superintendent of Rural Police, who asks which man is Monsieur Nozdryov. Nozdryov demands to know the official’s identity; the superintendent answers that he is a government officer. Chichikov does not wait for the conversation to continue. He grabs his cap, slips behind the superintendent, rushes onto the verandah, springs into his britchka, and orders Selifan to drive as fast as possible. The arrival of official authority creates the gap through which Chichikov escapes, but it does not settle the dispute or make his conduct safe from exposure.

Even after Nozdryov’s establishment has vanished behind hillocks and hedgerows, Chichikov keeps looking back, expecting pursuit. His breath is labored and his heart flutters. The flight gives the failed bargain a bodily aftermath: the man who entered seeking an advantageous purchase leaves shaken, with no transfer secured and no control over what Nozdryov may say.

Nozdryov later appears at the Governor’s ball and approaches Chichikov while leading the Public Prosecutor by the arm. Chichikov sees him and decides to leave, but the Governor asks him to arbitrate a dispute between two ladies, delaying his escape. Nozdryov bears down on him. The account places this encounter amid mounting female dissatisfaction with Chichikov’s behavior toward the Governor’s daughter; the women’s displeasure becomes a tacit social proscription against both him and the young woman. The episode thus links the failed private negotiation to the public climate in which rumor and scandal can gather force.

The consequences reach beyond the ballroom. Chichikov’s purchases become the talk of the town, and the townspeople speculate about the transfer of peasants; some even advise him to take an escort for the journey. His reassuring explanation that the purchased peasants are peaceable and consenting helps sustain the appearance of a legitimate transaction, while his growing reputation as a millionaire makes him more popular. Against that favorable reception, Nozdryov’s intervention introduces a disruptive countercurrent: the man who refused to sell can still publicize the existence of the scheme.

Narrative significance

The failed deal is staged as a descending series of substitutions: a sale becomes a wager, the wager becomes a suspicious card game, and the chess game becomes a quarrel over cheating and then a threat of assault. Each substitution removes another layer of mutual pretense. Nozdryov invokes friendship while refusing the ordinary terms of a sale; Chichikov offers one explanation and then another, yet neither can restore trust. Their conflict exposes how precarious Chichikov’s enterprise is when its success depends on discretion and on dealing with men who are themselves impulsive and unreliable.

The narrator’s comic enlargement of the near-assault does not erase its danger. Nozdryov’s pipe, the servants, and Chichikov’s inability to speak mark a real loss of control, while the sudden official arrival provides an almost theatrical interruption rather than a resolution. The episode ends with escape, not agreement: Chichikov has avoided a beating, but the failed bargain has produced a witness to his behavior and left Nozdryov free to carry the story into the social world. The transaction’s collapse therefore advances both the physical risk of Chichikov’s journey and the public exposure that threatens his carefully managed reputation.