Gogol frankly confesses that in this comedy he has tried to put together and crystallize all the evil that he saw in the administrative affairs of Russia. The general impression it gave was that of a satire, as he desired; the nation looked at itself in the glass, and was ashamed. "In the midst of my own laughter, which was louder than ever," says Gogol, "the spectator perceived a note of sorrow and anger, and I myself noticed that my laugh was not the same as before, and that it was no longer possible to be as I used to be in my works; the need to amuse myself with innocent fictions was gone with my youth." This is the sincere confession of the humorist whose laughter is full of tears and bitterness.
This rough satire on the government of the autocrat Nicholas, this terrible flagellation of wickedness in high places raised to a venerated national institution, was represented before the court and applauded by it, and the satirical author of it was subjected to no censor but the emperor himself, who read the play in manuscript, burst into roars of laughter over it, and ordered his players to give it without delay; and on the first night Nicholas appeared in his box, and his imperial hands gave the signal for applause. The courtiers could not do otherwise than swallow the pill, but it left a bad taste and a bitter sediment in their hearts, which they treasured up against Gogol for the day of revenge.
On this occasion the terrible autocrat acted with the same exquisite delicacy and truly royal munificence which he had shown toward Puchkine. On allowing Gogol a pension of five thousand rubles, he said to the person who presented the petition, "Do not let your protégé know that this gift is from me; he would feel obliged to write from a government standpoint, and I do not wish him to do that." Several times afterward the Emperor secretly sent him such gifts under cover of his friend Joukowsky the poet, by which means he was able to defray his journeys to Europe.
Without apparent cause Gogol's character became soured about the year 1836; he became a prey to hypochondria, probably, as may be deduced from a passage in one of his letters, on account of the atmosphere of hostility which had hung over him since the publication of "The Inspector." "Everybody is against me," he says, "officials, police, merchants, literary men; they are all gnashing and snapping at my comedy! Nowadays I hate it! Nobody knows what I suffer. I am worn out in body and soul." He determined to leave the country, and he afterward returned to it only occasionally, until he went back at last to languish and die there. Like Turguenief, and not without some, truth, he declared that he could see his country, the object of his study, better from a distance; it is the law of the painter, who steps away from his picture to a certain distance in order to study it better. He went from one place to another in Europe, and in Rome he formed a close friendship with the Russian painter Ivanof, who had retired to a Capuchin convent, where he spent twenty years on one picture, "The Apparition of Christ," and left it at last unfinished. Some profess to believe that Gogol was converted to Catholicism, and with his friend devoted himself to a life of asceticism and contemplation of the hereafter, toward which vexed and melancholy souls often feel themselves irresistibly drawn.
Gogol felt a strong desire to deal with the truth, with realities; he longed to write a book that would tell the whole truth, which should show Russia as she was, and which should not be hampered by influences that forced him to temporize, attenuate, and weigh his words,—a book in which he might give free vent to his satirical vein, and put his faculties of observation to consummate use. This book, which was to be a résumé of life, a chef d'œuvre, a lasting monument (the aspiration of every ambitious soul that cannot bear to die and be forgotten), at last became a fixed idea in Gogol's mind; it took complete possession of him, gave him no repose, absorbed his whole life, demanded every effort of his brain, and finally remained unfinished. And yet what he accomplished constitutes the most profoundly human book that has ever been written in Russia; it contains the whole programme of the school initiated by Gogol, and compels us to count the author of it among the descendants of Cervantes. "Don Quixote" was in fact the model for "Dead Souls," which put an end to romanticism, as "Quixote" did to books of chivalry. That none may say that this supposition is dictated by my national pride, I am going to quote literally two paragraphs, one by Gogol himself, the other by Melchior de Voguié, the intelligent French critic whose work on the Russian novel has been so useful to me in these studies.
"Puchkine," says Gogol, "has been urging me for some time to undertake a long and serious work. One day he talked to me of my feeble health, of the frequent attacks which may cause my premature death; he mentioned as an example Cervantes, the author of some short stories of excellent quality, but who would never have held the place he is awarded among the writers of first rank, had he not undertaken his 'Don Quixote.' And at last he suggested to me a subject of his own invention on which he had thought of making a poem, and said he would tell it to nobody but me. The subject was 'The Dead Souls.' Puchkine also suggested to me the idea of 'The Inspector.'"
"In spite of this frank testimony," adds Voguié, "equally honorable to both friends, I must continue to believe that the true progenitor of 'Dead Souls' was Cervantes himself. On leaving Russia Gogol turned toward Spain, and studied at close quarters the literature of this country, especially 'Don Quixote,' which was always his favorite book. The Spanish humorist held up to him a subject marvellously suited to his plans, the adventures of a hero with a mania which leads him into all regions of society, and who serves as the pretext to show to the spectator a series of pictures, a sort of human magic-lantern. The near relationship of these two works is indicated at all points,—the cogitative, sardonic spirit, the sadness underlying the laughter, and the impossibility of classifying either under any definite literary head. Gogol protested against the application of the word 'novel' to his book, and himself called it a poem, dividing it, not into chapters but into cantos. Poem it cannot be called in any rigorous sense of the term; but classify 'Don Quixote,' and Gogol's masterpiece will fall into the same category."
I read "Dead Souls" before reading Voguié's criticism, and my impression coincided exactly with his. I said to myself, "This book is the nearest like 'Don Quixote' of any that I have ever read." There are important differences—how could it be otherwise?—and even discounting the loss to Gogol by means of translation, a marked inferiority of the Russian to Cervantes; but they are writers of the same species, and even at the distance of two centuries they bear a likeness to each other. And the intention to take "Don Quixote" as a model is evident, even though Gogol had never set foot in Spain, as some of his compatriots affirm.
"Dead Souls" may be divided into three parts: the first, which was completed and published in 1842; the second, which was incomplete and rudimentary, and cast into the flames by the author in a fit of desperation, but published after his death from notes that had escaped this holocaust; and the third, which never took shape outside the author's mind.
Even the contrast between the heroes of Cervantes and Gogol—the Ingenious Knight Avenger of Wrongs, and the clever rascal who goes from place to place trying to carry out his extravagant schemes—illustrates still more clearly the Cervantesque affiliation of the book. Undoubtedly Gogol purposely chose a contrast, because he wished to embody in the story the wrath he felt at the social state of Russia, more lamentable and hateful even than that of Spain in Cervantes' time. No more profound diatribe than "Dead Souls" has ever been written in Russia, though it is a country where satire has flourished abundantly. Sometimes there is a ray of sunshine, and the poet's tense brows relax with a hearty laugh. In the first chapter is a description of the Russian inns, drawn with no less graceful wit than that of the inns of La Mancha. It is not difficult to go on with the parallel.
In "Dead Souls," as in "Don Quixote," the hero's servants are important personages, and so are their horses, which have become typical under the names of Rocinante and Rucio; the dialogues between the coachman Selifan and his horses remind one of some of the passages between Sancho and his donkey. As in "Don Quixote," the infinite variety of persons and episodes, the physiognomy of the places, the animated succession of incidents, offer a panorama of life. As in "Don Quixote," woman occupies a place in the background; no important love-affair appears in the whole book. Gogol, like Cervantes, shows less dexterity in depicting feminine than masculine types, except in the case of the grotesque, where he also resembles the creator of Maritornes and Teresa Panza. As in "Don Quixote," the best part of the book is the beginning; the inspiration slackens toward the middle, for the reason, probably, that in both the poetic instinct supersedes the prudent forecasting of the idea, and there is in both something of the sublime inconsistency common to geniuses and to the popular muse. And in "Don Quixote," as in "Dead Souls," above the realism of the subject and the vulgarity of many passages there is a sort of ebullient, fantastic life, something supersensual, which carries us along under full sail into the bright world of imagination; something which enlivens the fancy, takes hold upon the mind, and charms the soul; something which makes us better, more humane, more spiritual in effect.