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Gogol followed up the "Evenings on a Farm near the Dikanka" with two other volumes of stories and sketches, of which the immortal "Taras Bulba" was included in one. These other tales show an astonishing advance in power of conception and mastery of style.
And always were his fat lips parted as though athirst, and perpetually had he in his colourless eyes an expression of insatiable hunger. One evening I overheard a dialogue to the following effect. "Dikanka, pray come and scratch my back. Yes, between the shoulder-blades. O-o-oh, that is it. My word, how strong you are!" Whereat Dikanka had laughed shrilly.
Only a week was it since Iraklei's wife, a thin, shrewish, long-nosed woman with green and catlike eyes, had set forth on a pilgrimage to Kiev, and Iraklei had hastened to import into the hut a stout, squint-eyed damsel whom he had introduced to me as his "niece by marriage." "She was baptised Evdokia," he had said on the occasion referred to. "Usually, however, I call her Dikanka.
Then, again, behold, and he seemed to have dropped from the sky, and went flying about the street of the village, of which no trace now remains, and which was not more than a hundred paces from Dikanka.
Then, behold, he seemed to have dropped from the sky again, and went flying about the street of the village, of which no trace now remains, and which was not more than a hundred paces from Dikanka.
Come, read this,” and Fyodor Pavlovitch gave him Evenings in a Cottage near Dikanka. He read a little but didn’t like it. He did not once smile, and ended by frowning. “Why? Isn’t it funny?” asked Fyodor Pavlovitch. Smerdyakov did not speak. “Answer, stupid!” “It’s all untrue,” mumbled the boy, with a grin. “Then go to the devil! You have the soul of a lackey.
And only when I had moved my chair, and thrown down my book, had the laughter and unctuous whispering died away, and given place to a whisper of: "Holy Father Nicholas, pray for us unto God! Is the supper kvas ready, Dikanka?" And softly the pair had departed to the kitchen there to grunt and squeal once more like a couple of pigs....
This story, taken from Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka, a series of sketches of the life of the Ukrainian peasants, offers a good illustration of the author’s art, which was a combination of the romantic and realistic elements. In these pages Gógol wished to record the myths and legends still current among the plain folk of his beloved Ukrainia.
Then, again, behold, he seemed to have dropped from the sky, and went flying about the streets of the village, of which no trace now remains, and which was not more than a hundred paces from Dikanka.
Thereafter had followed a bout of choice abuse between his neighbour and his "niece," while Virubov himself, framed in the wicket-gate, and listening to the contest, had smacked his lips as he gazed at the pair, and particularly at Madame Ezhov. At the beginning of the bout Dikanka had screeched: "It is my opinion, it is my opinion, that "
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