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This amused the poet so keenly that he narrated all the circumstances to Gogol and suggested that the latter make a play with this experience as the basis of the plot. Gogol not only acted on the suggestion, but instead of a mere farce, he produced a comedy of manners.
He is ready to sacrifice all the pseudo-classic and romantic poetry, and, in fact, the whole of Russian literature anterior to about the year 1840, but he will not allow anything disrespectful to be said of Gogol, who about that time founded the Russian realistic school. "Gogol," he holds, "was a great and original genius.
It is a significant fact, that Tolstoi, after a varied and long experience of human life, after reviewing all the systems of thought that have influenced modern society, should have finally arrived and found rest in the statements that most of us learned in childhood from our mothers' lips. Nikolai Vassilievich Gogol was born at Sorotchinetz, in Little Russia, in March, 1809.
On the subject of this tail were written more reams of paper and petitions than in the quarrel about the goose between Ivan Ivanitch and Ivan Nikiphoritch; and more ink and bile were spilt than there was mud in Mirgorod, since the creation of the universe. The pig that so happily decided the famous quarrel in Gogol would be a priceless blessing to Nassik, and the struggle for the tail.
But if a gentleman puts on a top hat and a frock-coat, and then goes about on his hands and knees well, he may attract attention. That's what Brother Gogol does. He goes about on his hands and knees with such inexhaustible diplomacy, that by this time he finds it quite difficult to walk upright."
In 1859 he published "The Uncle's Dream," a society novel, showing both in its humour and in its ruthless satire the influence of Gogol. This is an exceedingly entertaining book, and, a strange thing in Dostoevski, it is, in many places, hilariously funny.
His soul and speech were incurably tragic; he could not force himself to play the prosperous and frivolous part demanded of him by President Sunday. And, indeed, when Syme came in the President, with that daring disregard of public suspicion which was his policy, was actually chaffing Gogol upon his inability to assume conventional graces.
"Yes," he said slowly, "there is a spy in this room. There is a traitor at this table. I will waste no more words. His name " Syme half rose from his seat, his finger firm on the trigger. "His name is Gogol," said the President. "He is that hairy humbug over there who pretends to be a Pole." Gogol sprang to his feet, a pistol in each hand. With the same flash three men sprang at his throat.
"So your old friend Boriskoff has found you a job?" he said, laying a patronizing hand on the lad's stout shoulder. "Well, well, I knew Richard Gessner when I was er hem on duty in Kensington, and in all matters of public charity I certainly found him to be an example. You know, of course, that he is a Pole and that his real name is Maxim Gogol.
"Pathetic Slav," said the President, "tragic child of Poland, are you prepared in the presence of that card to deny that you are in this company shall we say de trop?" "Right oh!" said the late Gogol. It made everyone jump to hear a clear, commercial and somewhat cockney voice coming out of that forest of foreign hair. It was irrational, as if a Chinaman had suddenly spoken with a Scotch accent.
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