But what troubles me is the fact that they are dead." "What a blockhead of a creature!" said Chichikov to himself, for he was beginning to lose patience.

"Bless her heart, I may as well be going.
She has thrown me into a perfect sweat, the cursed old shrew!" He took a handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped the perspiration from his brow.

Yet he need not have flown into such a passion.

More than one respected statesman reveals himself, when confronted with a business matter, to be just such another as Madam Korobotchka, in that, once he has got an idea into his head, there is no getting it out of him--you may ply him with daylight-clear arguments, yet they will rebound from his brain as an india-rubber ball rebounds from a flagstone.
Nevertheless, wiping away the perspiration, Chichikov resolved to try whether he could not bring her back to the road by another path.
"Madam," he said, "either you are declining to understand what I say or you are talking for the mere sake of talking.

If I hand you over some money--fifteen roubles for each soul, do you understand ?--it is MONEY, not something which can be picked up haphazard on the street.