"Alas," thought the army of tchinovniks, "it is probable that, should he learn of the gross reports at present afloat in our town, he will make such a fuss that we shall never hear the last of them." In particular did the Director of the Medical Department turn pale at the thought that possibly the new Governor-General would surmise the term "dead folk" to connote patients in the local hospitals who, for want of proper preventative measures, had died of sporadic fever.

Indeed, might it not be that Chichikov was neither more nor less than an emissary of the said Governor-General, sent to conduct a secret inquiry?
Accordingly he (the Director of the Medical Department) communicated this last supposition to the President of the Council, who, though at first inclined to ejaculate "Rubbish!" suddenly turned pale on propounding to himself the theory.

"What if the souls purchased by Chichikov should REALLY be dead ones ?"--a terrible thought considering that he, the President, had permitted their transferment to be registered, and had himself acted as Plushkin's representative! What if these things should reach the Governor-General's ears?
He mentioned the matter to one friend and another, and they, in their turn, went white to the lips, for panic spreads faster and is even more destructive, than the dreaded black death.

Also, to add to the tchinovniks' troubles, it so befell that just at this juncture there came into the local Governor's hands two documents of great importance.

The first of them contained advices that, according to received evidence and reports, there was operating in the province a forger of rouble-notes who had been passing under various aliases and must therefore be sought for with the utmost diligence; while the second document was a letter from the Governor of a neighbouring province with regard to a malefactor who had there evaded apprehension--a letter conveying also a warning that, if in the province of the town of N.there should appear any suspicious individual who could produce neither references nor passports, he was to be arrested forthwith.