Our hero began in a sort of detached manner--touching lightly upon the subject of the Russian Empire, and expatiating upon the immensity of the same, and saying that even the Empire of Ancient Rome had been of considerably smaller dimensions.

Meanwhile Sobakevitch sat with his head drooping.
From that Chichikov went on to remark that, according to the statutes of the said Russian Empire (which yielded to none in glory--so much so that foreigners marvelled at it), peasants on the census lists who had ended their earthly careers were nevertheless, on the rendering of new lists, returned equally with the living, to the end that the courts might be relieved of a multitude of trifling, useless emendations which might complicate the already sufficiently complex mechanism of the State.
Nevertheless, said Chichikov, the general equity of this measure did not obviate a certain amount of annoyance to landowners, since it forced them to pay upon a non-living article the tax due upon a living.

Hence (our hero concluded) he (Chichikov) was prepared, owing to the personal respect which he felt for Sobakevitch, to relieve him, in part, of the irksome obligation referred to (in passing, it may be said that Chichikov referred to his principal point only guardedly, for he called the souls which he was seeking not "dead," but "non-existent").
Meanwhile Sobakevitch listened with bent head; though something like a trace of expression dawned in his face as he did so.

Ordinarily his body lacked a soul--or, if he did posses a soul, he seemed to keep it elsewhere than where it ought to have been; so that, buried beneath mountains (as it were) or enclosed within a massive shell, its movements produced no sort of agitation on the surface.
"Well ?" said Chichikov--though not without a certain tremor of diffidence as to the possible response.
"You are after dead souls ?" were Sobakevitch's perfectly simple words.
He spoke without the least surprise in his tone, and much as though the conversation had been turning on grain.
"Yes," replied Chichikov, and then, as before, softened down the expression "dead souls." "They are to be found," said Sobakevitch.

"Why should they not be ?" "Then of course you will be glad to get rid of any that you may chance to have ?" "Yes, I shall have no objection to SELLING them." At this point the speaker raised his head a little, for it had struck him that surely the would-be buyer must have some advantage in view.
"The devil!" thought Chichikov to himself.