Samosvitov’s conspiracy to protect Chichikov is a chain of coordinated interventions that converts an official investigation into an opportunity for bribery, document theft, impersonation, and manufactured scandal. From a thirty-thousand-rouble bargain in a prison cell to the release of a detained woman and a dossier designed to bewilder the Governor-General, the plot shows how the machinery of law can be manipulated through the very offices and procedures meant to administer it.

Background: A case already entangled in rumor

The conspiracy unfolds after authorities reopen Chichikov’s past amid rumors surrounding the validity of two wills, alleged theft and concealment of funds, his purchase of dead souls, and his earlier connivance at contraband while serving in the Customs Department. Information he believed known only to himself and four walls has reached the investigators. Yet the inquiry’s expansion does not make its picture clearer: allegations, old transactions, and sensational stories accumulate together, making it harder to distinguish what can be established from what is merely being repeated.

That confusion has roots in the provincial world’s earlier dealings with Chichikov. He had represented his purchase of dead souls as a lawful transfer of peasants listed in the census returns, insisting that he did not step outside civil law; with a landowner he argued that transferring the tax burden would spare her further payments to an assessor. At the registration desk, he presented a purchase list for entry and said that some vendors were present while he held powers of attorney from the rest. Such procedures gave the transactions documentary form even as their substance remained suspect. The investigation therefore concerns not only what Chichikov did but also how documents, official registration, and clever interpretations of legal categories can lend a questionable scheme the appearance of order.

The prison bargain and the dispatch-box

A robust official named Samosvitov visits Chichikov in his cell and offers a price: thirty thousand roubles, shared among the conspirators, the Governor-General’s staff, and the Governor-General’s secretary. In return, he promises complete exoneration and compensation for Chichikov’s lost time. Chichikov asks how this can be done when all his effects, including his dispatch-box, have been sealed and taken away for examination. Samosvitov answers that the belongings will be back in an hour and asks him to seal the bargain with a handshake. Chichikov agrees, scarcely able to believe what he is hearing.

The promise is quickly made good. Less than an hour after Samosvitov leaves, a messenger returns the dispatch-box with its papers and money practically undisturbed. The apparent official delivery conceals an unauthorized search: Samosvitov has rebuked the gendarmes for insufficient vigilance, told the superintendent more men are needed, taken charge of the box himself, and removed every paper capable of compromising Chichikov. He seals what remains and sends it back under the pretext that it contains clothing needed for the night. Along with the surviving papers and money, Chichikov receives warm clothes. The recovery of his evidence reverses his immediate despair, and his thoughts turn away from a country estate and a simple life toward the town house, theatre-going, and the ballet girl he has been pursuing.

Disguise and the woman’s escape

Samosvitov’s intervention extends beyond Chichikov’s property to an arrested woman. Learning where she is being held, he first appears at the place as a smart young gendarme; the sentry salutes him and stands at attention. Samosvitov asks how long the man has been on duty, then tells him that he will be needed and arranges for his officer to relieve him. The exchange exploits the sentry’s ready acceptance of official appearance and rank.

Samosvitov then returns home, puts on a gendarme’s uniform, and adds a false moustache and whiskers. On his way to the prison where Chichikov is confined, he recruits a street woman into the scheme and places her in the care of two young accomplices. He goes back to the prison holding the original detainee and presents himself, in disguise, as the sentry’s replacement. Under cover of this assumed duty, he substitutes the recruited woman for the prisoner and has the arrested woman taken to a hiding place where she is unlikely to be found. What begins as a purchase of official favor thus becomes an operational rescue: costume, impersonation, and the routine of relieving a guard provide the means to defeat custody.

Fabricated reports and administrative paralysis

While Samosvitov works through physical impersonation and access, Chichikov’s lawyer works through information. The lawyer circulates claims that the Public Prosecutor is preparing a report against the local Governor, that a confidential official is preparing one against the Chief of Gendarmery, and that another, still more confidential official threatens the first. Each official is led to believe that he may become the next target. The three are consequently driven to seek Samosvitov’s advice, giving the conspiracy leverage over those who might otherwise direct the inquiry.

Reports then multiply into an absurd and damaging tangle. They allege, among other things, illegitimate children, paid mistresses, and wayward wives, welding personal scandals to Chichikov’s history and the dead-soul affair. The point is not that these accusations establish his innocence; their function is to make the record so disorderly that no one can confidently sort allegation from evidence. By the time the dossier reaches the Governor-General, it leaves him bewildered. Even his unusually capable and energetic secretary nearly loses his reason trying to grasp the thread of the accumulated reports.

The dossier arrives when the province already faces several urgent crises. Famine has struck one district, and officials sent to distribute relief have performed badly. In another, Old Believers are agitated by a rumor that the Antichrist has arisen and will not let the dead rest; while seeking to capture him, they beat people they consider innocent. Elsewhere, peasants have risen against landowners and police superintendents after a rumor promises that peasants will become landowners and wear frock coats, while existing landowners will become peasants and take their goods to market. One local community refuses to pay its taxes, prompting the use of force. The fabricated file thus competes for attention with hunger, religious panic, and revolt, leaving the Governor-General burdened by a province already difficult to govern.

Consequences and significance

The conspiracy’s methods are distinct but mutually reinforcing. The bribe offers a direct route to exoneration; the removal of compromising papers protects Chichikov from evidence; the disguise and prisoner substitution defeat physical custody; and the invented reports turn official suspicion back upon the officials themselves. Rather than abolishing bureaucracy, the plot exploits its reliance on rank, written reports, sealed property, sentries, and chains of delegated authority. Each procedure can be imitated, redirected, or made to contradict another.

The episode also sharpens the novel’s distinction between legal form and substantive truth. Chichikov’s earlier transactions pass through purchase deeds, census categories, and registration, while the later defense depends on a lawyer’s manipulation of reports and Samosvitov’s abuse of official access. The system produces documents at every turn, but more documentation does not necessarily yield knowledge: the dossier becomes so crowded with claims that the Governor-General and his secretary cannot make a coherent account of it. Samosvitov’s conspiracy therefore protects Chichikov by creating not a convincing explanation of his past, but an administrative fog in which judgment is difficult to reach and official power can be privately bargained over.