The narrator observes a small barouche—a medium sized carriage—owned by a member of the “middling gentry” who was “neither fat nor thin” (91), as it arrives in “the town of N” (89) in provincial Russia, far from the two capital cities of Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Some of the local inhabitants comment on the coach and its possible speed. The man in the coach is the work’s protagonist, Pavel Nikolaevich Chichikov, a midrange civil service rank in the imperial bureaucracy. He arrives at a local inn, which is typical for its type, including the presence of cockroaches (107).

The traveler’s servants, a driver named Selifan and a personal attendant named Petrushka, bring in his bags, an older suitcase and a document case, that will feature prominently in later chapters. Petrushka sets up a mattress in the hallway, and his peculiar odor follows him there.

The new arrival visits the inn’s dining room and asks the staff about his particular concerns, far beyond casual chatter: “who was the governor of the town, the chief judge, the chief prosecutor—in fact, he did not leave out a single important official; with even greater precision, if not personal concern, he asked about all the important landowners” (144).