What a strong fellow he was! He had served in the Guards, and the Lord only knows what they had given for him, seeing that he was over three arshins in height." Again Chichikov tried to remark that Probka was dead, but Sobakevitch's tongue was borne on the torrent of its own verbiage, and the only thing to be done was to listen.
"And Milushkin, the bricklayer! He could build a stove in any house you liked! And Maksim Teliatnikov, the bootmaker! Anything that he drove his awl into became a pair of boots--and boots for which you would be thankful, although he WAS a bit foul of the mouth.

And Eremi Sorokoplechin, too! He was the best of the lot, and used to work at his trade in Moscow, where he paid a tax of five hundred roubles.

Well, THERE'S an assortment of serfs for you!--a very different assortment from what Plushkin would sell you!" "But permit me," at length put in Chichikov, astounded at this flood of eloquence to which there appeared to be no end.

"Permit me, I say, to inquire why you enumerate the talents of the deceased, seeing that they are all of them dead, and that therefore there can be no sense in doing so.

'A dead body is only good to prop a fence with,' says the proverb." "Of course they are dead," replied Sobakevitch, but rather as though the idea had only just occurred to him, and was giving him food for thought.
"But tell me, now: what is the use of listing them as still alive?
And what is the use of them themselves?
They are flies, not human beings." "Well," said Chichikov, "they exist, though only in idea." "But no--NOT only in idea.