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The hero is almost an imitation of the man in Gogol's short story, "The Cloak," affording another striking example of the germinal power of that immortal work. Dostoevski seemed fully to realise his debt to Gogol, and in particular to "The Cloak;" for in "Poor Folk," one entire letter is taken up with a description of Makar's emotions after reading that extraordinary tale.
On his side, also, the man who had impersonated Professor de Worms was not less communicative. His own story was almost as silly as Syme's. "That's a good get-up of yours," said Syme, draining a glass of Macon; "a lot better than old Gogol's. Even at the start I thought he was a bit too hairy." "A difference of artistic theory," replied the Professor pensively. "Gogol was an idealist.
The second is, "Why should a man who loves his country uncover her nakedness?" Gogol's realism differs in two important aspects from the realism of the French school, whether represented by Balzac, Flaubert, Guy de Maupassant, or Zola. He had all the French love of veracity, and could have honestly said with the author of "Une Vie" that he painted 'humble verite.
Then, as he passed the chest of drawers, he gave a final touch to the half-dozen ragged-edged books which composed his library three volumes of Puschkin, of three different editions, Ivan Kryloff's Poems and Fables, Gogol's Terrible Revenge, Tolstoi's How People Live, and two or three more, including Koltsoff, the shepherd poet, and an ancient guide to the city of Kiew as heterogeneous a collection of works as could be imagined, yet all notable in their way, except, indeed, the guide-book, for beauty, power, or touching truth.
When he was left alone, Ivan installed himself at a window of the living-room, whence he could miss no one who should approach the house, either on foot or driving. He had, for company, the last of Gógòl's semi-tragic satires; and the first hour or two of his wait passed pleasantly; the unwonted silence in the rooms being a positive relief.
The boy inherited much from his father; but, unlike Turgenev, he had the best of all private tutors, a good mother, of whom his biographer says, Elle demeure toujours sa plus intime amie.* *For the facts in Gogol's life, I have relied chiefly on the doctor's thesis by Raina Tyrneva, Aix, 1901. At the age of twelve, Nikolai was sent away to the high school at Nezhin, a town near Kiev.
When great personalities are portrayed, this abandon is readiest; for the strength or poignancy of their natures carries us away as by a whirlwind. For the instant, we become as they and feel their ecstasy of pride and power as our own. Yet the great artist can awaken this sympathy even for characters that are small and weak. In Gogol's Dead Souls, for example, there are no heroes.
"No one, with the exception, perhaps, of a bar-man, a stout individual with pale eyes, who did look at me somewhat suspiciously. See how he's sticking over his vodka. What he meant by 'sticking' exactly, I didn't understand, but it could hardly have been to my credit. It reminded me of the mauvais ton in Gogol's "Revisor", do you remember? Perhaps because I tried to pour my vodka under the table.
The drama was finished on the 4 December 1835, and of course the immediate difficulty was the censorship. How would it be possible for such a satire either to be printed or acted in Russia? Gogol's friend, Madame Smirnova, carried the manuscript to the Czar, Nikolas I. It was read to him; he roared with laughter, and immediately ordered that it be acted.
The cabmen refuse to take me to the Holy Mountains at night, and advise me to spend the night at Slavyansk, which I did very willingly, for I felt broken and lame with pain.... The town is something like Gogol's Mirgorod; there is a hairdresser and a watchmaker, so that one may hope that in another thousand years there will be a telephone.
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