But the man who dares to make such a revelation must pay for his temerity with his life. Gogol returned from Rome intent upon the completion of the fatal book; but his nerves, which were almost worn out, failed him utterly at times, his soul overflowed with bitterness and gall, and at last in a fit of rage and desperation he burned the manuscript of the Second Part, together with his whole library. His darkened mind was haunted by the question in Hamlet's monologue, the problem concerning "that bourn from which no traveller returns;" his meditations took a deeply religious hue, and his last work, "Letters to my Friends," is a collection of edifying epistles, urging the necessity of the consideration of the hereafter. To these exhortations he added one on Sclavophile nationalism, exaggerated by a fanatical devotion; and in the same breath he heralds the spirit of the Gospels and anathematizes the theories imported from the Occident, and declares that he has given up writing for the sake of dedicating his time to self-introspection and the service of his neighbor, and that henceforth he recognizes nothing but his country and his God. The public was exasperated; it was Gogol's fate to rouse the tiger. Who ever heard of a satirist turning Church father? It began to be whispered that Gogol had become a devotee of mysticism; and it is quite true that on his return from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem he lived miserably, giving all he had to the poor. He was hypochondriac and misanthropic, excepting when with children, whose innocent ways brought back traces of his former good-nature. His death is laid to two different causes. The general story is that during the Revolution of 1848 he lost what little intelligence remained to him, under the conviction that there was no remedy for his country's woes; and at last, weighed down by an incurable melancholy and despair, and terrified by visions of universal destruction and other tremendous catastrophes, he fell on his knees and fasted for a whole day before the holy pictures that hung at the head of his bed, and was found there dead. Recent writers modify this statement, and claim to know on good authority that Gogol died of a typhoid fever, which, with his chronic infirmities, was a fatal complication. Whatever may have been the illness which took him out of the world, it is certain that the part of Gogol most diseased was his soul, and his sickness was a too intense love of country, which could not see with indifferent optimism the ills of the present or the menace of the future. Gogol had no heart-burdens except the suffering he endured for the masses; he was unmarried, and was never known to have any passion but a love of country exaggerated to a dementia.
It is a strange thing that Gogol—the sincere reactionist, the admirer of absolutism and of autocracy, the Pan-Sclavophile, the habitual enemy of Western paganism and liberal theories—should have been the one to throw Russian letters into their present mad whirl, into the path of nihilism and into the currents of revolution,—a course which he seems to have described once in allegory, in one of the most admirable pages of "Dead Souls," where he compares Russia to a troïka. I will quote it, and so take my farewell of this Russian Cervantes:—
"Rapidity of motion [in travel] is like an unknown force, a hidden power which seizes us and carries us on its wings; we skim through the air, we fly, and everything else flies too; the verst-stones fly; the tradesmen's carts fly past on one side and the other; forests with dark patches of pines rush by, and the noise of destroying axes and the cawing of hungry crows; the road flies by and is lost in the distance where we can distinguish neither object nor form nor color, unless it be a bit of the sky or the moon continually crossed by patches of flying cloud. O troïka, troïka, bird-troïka! There is no need to ask who invented thee! Thou couldst not have been conceived save in the breast of a quick, active people, in the midst of a gigantic territory that covers half the globe, and where nobody dares count the verst-stones on the roads for fear of vertigo! Thou art not graceful in thy form, O telega, rustic britchka, kibitka, thou carriage for all roads in winter or summer! No, thou art not an object of art made to please the eye; dry wood, a hatchet, a chisel, a clever arm,—with these thou art set up; there is not a peasant in Yaroslaf that knows not how to construct thee. Now the troïka is harnessed. And where is the man? What man? The driver? Aha! it is this same peasant! Very well, let him put on his boots and get up on his seat. Did you say his boots? This is no German postilion; he needs no boots nor any foot-gear at all. All that he needs is mittens for his hands and a beard on his chin! See him balancing himself; hear him sing. Now he pulls away like a whirlwind; the wheels seem a smooth circle from centre to circumference, and the tires are invisible; the ground rushes to meet the clattering hoofs; the foot-traveller leaps to one side with a cry of fright, then stops and opens his mouth in astonishment; but the vehicle has passed, and on it flies, on it flies, and far away a little whirl of dust rises, spreads out, divides, and disappears in gauzy patches, falling gently upon the sides of the road. It is all gone; nothing remains of it.
"Thou art like the troïka, O Russia, my beloved country! Dost thou not feel thyself carried onward toward the unknown like this impetuous bird which nobody can overtake? The road is invisible under thy feet, the bridges echo and groan, and thou leavest everything behind thee in the distance. Men stop and gaze surprised at this celestial portent. Is it the lightning? Is it the thunderbolt from heaven itself? What causes this movement of universal terror? What mysterious and incomprehensible force spurs on thy steeds? They are Russian steeds, good steeds. Doth the whirlwind sometimes nestle in their manes? The signal is given: three bronze breasts expand; twelve ready feet start with simultaneous impetus, their light hoofs scarce striking the ground; three horses are changed before, our very eyes into three parallel lines which fly like a streak through the tremulous air. The troïka flies, sails, bright as a spirit of God. O Russia, Russia! whither goest thou? Answer! But there is no response; the bell clangs with a supernatural tone; the air, beaten and lashed, whistles and whirls, and rushes off in wide currents; the troïka cuts them all on the wing, and nations, monarchies, and empires stand aside and let her pass."
[1] I could take this passage bodily from the translation of "Dead Souls" made by Isabella Hapgood directly from the Russian, but there are some discrepancies in which the Spanish writer seems to be in the right, as in the use of the word writer for reader.—Tr.