The trick to good satire is to never be cruel to the characters you’re poking fun at and to always be a little cruel to yourself for making fun of them. This keeps everything from becoming bitter and cynical.

Gogol has a good feel for how far he can take his satire and though at this point I’m beginning to want to know what Chichikov plans to do with the souls, he’s at least cowardly and terrible negotiator too.