Chichikov wakes on the road worrying that Colonel Koshkarev will prove as mad as the last landowner. They arrive not at Koshkarev's but at Peter Petrovitch Pietukh's, where the master hauls himself from a fishing net in the lake, fat and cheerful, organised entirely around appetite. At this house Chichikov meets Platon Mikhalitch, handsome, wealthy, bored beyond measure, complaining that life holds no interest. Chichikov persuades him to travel; new places may rouse him. Platon proposes first his brother-in-law Constantine Kostanzhoglo. Curiosity sends Chichikov with a commissioner into a maze of departments, committees, and European models copied without purpose. Chichikov escapes grateful for any door that opens. Kostanzhoglo's estate announces itself in squared fields and willing workers. In eight years he multiplied income tenfold by knowing soil, turning wool to cloth, fish offal to glue, waste to profit, refusing London fashions and Petersburg theories. He is for agriculture lived on the land, for spending nothing the estate has not earned. He will not buy it himself: enough wealth already, and rumour would call him a miser. The chapter pits three economies against one another: Pietukh's consumption, Koshkarev's bureaucratic void, Kostanzhoglo's productive thrift. Platon's boredom shows what happens when money lacks purpose; Koshkarev's committees show what happens when purpose lacks contact with soil. He falls asleep planning Khlobuev's purchase while Pietukh's kitchen still dictates pasties in his dreams. Pietukh rises from his net like a fish king, orders servants in relays, and treats appetite as the only philosophy worth mastering. Platon sits among delicacies and yawns; his wealth has outrun his curiosity, so Chichikov becomes travel agent and therapist in one.
Selifan and Petrushka disagree over directions; Petrushka may be drunk; the view is beautiful enough that Chichikov tells himself Europe has nothing finer. Pietukh's hospitality is food as epic. Dinner lasts past midnight; servants run with dishes; Chichikov lies down hearing Pietukh dictate a pasty divided into four kingdoms: sturgeon cheeks and viaziga in one, buckwheat and mushrooms in another, calves' brains and sweet milk in a third, the list still expanding as sleep takes the guest. Before that visit the party encounters Colonel Koshkarev's system. Forms require forms; overseers oversee overseers; peasants hunger while ledgers swell. Koshkarev radiates pride at modernization; nothing productive leaves the basement. The house is bare of bronze and china; everything serves use. Over dinner he lectures against factories built only for show, against educating peasants before they are fed, against philanthropy that ruins families while posing as progress. Chichikov, fascinated, asks how a newcomer could grow rich quickly. Kostanzhoglo names Khlobuev's ruined estate nearby, cheap because extravagance devoured it. Chichikov meditates on purchase, mortgage, and a life that might replace paper souls with soil. Gogol satirizes European modernization that paralyzes Russian land while praising hands-on stewardship that turns scraps into factories. Chichikov, the professional schemer, listens as if hearing a new gospel. For the first time fraud seems smaller than farming. The wrong turn that brought him to Pietukh instead of Koshkarev becomes the right turn for the novel's second volume: less collecting dead names, more asking whether a man can live on living land. The wrong turn to Pietukh's house is luck disguised as error: without that feast, Platon would never propose Kostanzhoglo, and the novel would never reach its moral farmer.
At Koshkarev's, a commissioner guides Chichikov through departments named in French and German, each with its own seal, ledger, and overseer who oversees another overseer. Peasants stand in lines for rations that paperwork delays; the colonel beams at modernization while cellars hold nothing edible. Gogol mocks reform copied from European pamphlets without Russian soil beneath it. Chichikov escapes the maze grateful that madness here is visible, not hidden in smiles. Kostanzhoglo's tour is the antidote. Bare rooms, willing workers, fields squared like a lesson in geometry. He shows how fish offal becomes glue, wool becomes cloth, and every scrap returns as profit because he lives on the land he manages. Over dinner he attacks factory profiteers, political economists who never ploughed, and philanthropists who ruin families while posing as progress. Chichikov, who spent years pricing dead serfs, asks the practical question: how does a newcomer grow rich quickly? Buy Khlobuev cheap, work honestly, waste nothing. He sleeps on the plan while Pietukh's kitchen still dictates pasties in his dreams. Three economies collide in one chapter: consumption, bureaucratic void, and productive thrift. For the first time the scam artist hears a rival gospel in soil, and Khlobuev's ruined estate becomes opportunity instead of another list of ghosts. Selifan and Petrushka bicker over directions; Chichikov scolds one and admires the view, eating and listening while servants still run with dishes. Pietukh's pasty kingdoms linger in memory as comic excess; Koshkarev's European titles linger as warning. Kostanzhoglo alone ties wealth to labour on Russian ground, and Chichikov falls asleep planning purchase while the chapter turns Vol II from census fraud toward the question of whether a man can live honestly on living land.
