“Would you believe it, Your Excellency,” Nozdryov went on, “when he said ‘Sell me dead souls,’ I nearly split with laughter. I come here, and they tell me he’s bought up three million worth of peasants for resettlement—resettlement, hah! he was trying to buy dead ones from me. Listen, Chichikov, you’re a brute, by God, a brute, and His Excellency here, too, isn’t that right, prosecutor?”
