|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: be taken literally."
Manilov still felt at a loss--though he was conscious that he MUST
do something, he MUST propound some question. But what question? The
devil alone knew! In the end he merely expelled some more tobacco
smoke--this time from his nostrils as well as from his mouth.
"So," went on Chichikov, "if no obstacle stands in the way, we might
as well proceed to the completion of the purchase."
"What? Of the purchase of the dead souls?"
"Of the 'dead' souls? Oh dear no! Let us write them down as LIVING
ones, seeing that that is how they figure in the census returns. Never
do I permit myself to step outside the civil law, great though has
Dead Souls | 
