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Updated: June 23, 2025
"Ah, Paul Ivanovitch," said the old man, "how even now the property which you have acquired is blinding your eyes, and causing you to fail to realise your terrible position!" "Yes, my good friend and benefactor," wailed poor Chichikov despairingly, and clasping Murazov by the knees. "Yet save me if you can! The Prince is fond of you, and would do anything for your sake."
And the old man departed, leaving Chichikov plunged in thought. Once more had the gravity of life begun to loom large before him. "Yes, Murazov was right," he said to himself. "It is time that I were moving." Leaving the prison a warder carrying his effects in his wake he found Selifan and Petrushka overjoyed at seeing their master once more at liberty. "Well, good fellows?" he said kindly.
"Have no fear," said Murazov, "I myself will take them under my care, as well as procure for the children a tutor. Far better and nobler were it for you to be travelling with a wallet, and asking alms on behalf of God, then to be remaining here and asking alms for yourself alone.
"Paul Ivanovitch," said Murazov, shaking his head, "how that property of yours still seals your eyes and ears, so that you cannot so much as listen to the promptings of your own soul!" "Ah, I will think of my soul, too, if only you will save me." "Paul Ivanovitch," the old man began again, and then stopped. For a little while there was a pause.
The tchinovniks of our town are human beings, and no more. Some of them are men of worth, and nearly all of them men skilled in business though also, unfortunately, largely inter-related." "Now, tell me this, Athanasi Vassilievitch," said the Prince, "for you are about the only honest man of my acquaintance. What has inspired in you such a penchant for defending rascals?" "This," replied Murazov.
Murazov remained silent for a moment, as though he were debating something in his thoughts. Then he said: "Nevertheless it is as I say. You committed the injustice in the case of the lad Dierpiennikov." "What, Athanasi Vassilievitch? The fellow had infringed one of the Fundamental Laws! He had been found guilty of treason!"
But on the threshold the party came face to face with Murazov, and in Chichikov's heart the circumstance revived a ray of hope. Wresting himself with almost supernatural strength from the grasp of the escorting gendarmes, he threw himself at the feet of the horror-stricken old man. "Paul Ivanovitch," Murazov exclaimed, "what has happened to you?" "Save me!" gasped Chichikov.
Yet over him, as over every one, there hung poised the All-Saving Hand; and, an hour after his arrival at the prison, the doors of the gaol opened to admit Murazov.
"Paul Ivanovitch, Paul Ivanovitch," at length said Murazov, "what could not each of us rise to be did we but devote to good ends the same measure of energy and of patience which we bestow upon unworthy objects! How much good would not you yourself have effected!
Meanwhile Murazov sat gazing in silence at the unwonted spectacle of a man who had lately been mincing with the gait of a worldling or a military fop now writhing in dishevelment and despair as he poured out upon the hostile forces by which human ingenuity so often finds itself outwitted a flood of invective.
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