I shall pass briefly over the last part of the romance, which is only an arrangement drawn from the author’s notes. The adventurer is seen for the second time in the clutches of the law. He has forged a will, like Crispin in “Le Légataire;” and he is only released from prison by the intercession of an old philanthropist, who finally succeeds in softening the governor-general’s severity. Tchitchikof has agreed to become an honest man, or at least to marry, and to found a line of honest folk.
It has been thought that in this violent but straightforward governor, “animated by healthy hatreds” as Alceste says, Gogol meant to picture the Tsar Nicholas. Gogol belonged, indeed, to an epoch when Russia as yet expected her salvation and delivery from above. However, the tsar is not mentioned here more than elsewhere in “Dead Souls;” and the author, whose patriotism shines forth in so many places in the book, does not seem to have cared, as might have been expected, to personify the country in the emperor. I might adduce, in proof, all the passages where, by way of compensation, words about Russian soil, Russian horsemanship, Russian idiom, etc., bring out, through the ironical and trivial prose of the satire, the poet’s passionate lyric utterances which were revealed to us in his first writings. Here is a fragment which deserves to be enshrined in an anthology along with the piece about the Dniépr or the “Ukraine night:”—
“Russia! Russia! from the beautiful distant places where I dwell[24] I see thee, I see thee plainly, O my country! Thy nature is niggardly. In thee there is nothing to charm or to awe the spectator.... No: there is nothing splendid in thee, Russia, nothing marvellous; all is open, desert, flat. Thy little cities are scarce visible in thy plains, like points, like specks. Nothing in thee is seductive, nothing even delights the eye. What secret mysterious force, then, draws me to thee? Why does thy song, melancholy, fascinating, restless, resounding throughout all thy length and breadth, from one sea to the other, ring forever in my ears? What does this song contain? Whence come these accents and these sobs which find their echo in the heart? What are these dolorous tones which strike deep into the soul, and wake the memories? Russia, what desirest thou of me? What is this obscure, mysterious bond which unites us to each other? Why dost thou look at me thus? Why does all that thou containest fix upon me this expectant gaze? My thought remains mute before thy immensity. This very infinity, to what forebodings does it give rise? Since thou art limitless, canst thou not be the mother country of thoughts whose grandeur is immeasurable? Canst thou not bring forth giants, thou who art the country of mighty spaces? This thought of thy immeasurable extent is reflected powerfully in my soul, and an unknown force makes its way into the depths of my mind. My eyes are kindled with a supernatural vision. What dazzling distances! What a marvellous mirage unknown to earth! O Russia!”
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Nikolaï Vasilyévitch Gogol-Yanovsky, born, according to Polevoï, on the 31st of March, 1809, at Sorotchintsui. See Appendix.
[2] Evenings at the Farm House (Vetchera na Khutoryé).
[3] Hans Küchel Garten—such was the name of the unfortunate idyl—was afterwards placed by the author, not without complaisance, among his juvenilia. See Appendix.
[4] This is a mistake. He completed it, to be sure, but in his religious mania he destroyed the most of the second part: it was completed by another hand. See Appendix.
[5] From A Terrible Vengeance.
[6] The passage referred to is as follows: “The steppe grew more and more beautiful. The whole South, all the region which includes the New Russia of the present day as far as the Black Sea, was a virgin desert of green. Never had the plough passed through the boundless waves of vegetation. Only a few horses, concealed in it as in a forest, trod it under their hoofs. Nothing in nature could be finer. All the surface of the earth was like a green golden ocean from which emerged millions of varied flowers. Amidst the delicate tall stalks of the grass gleamed azure, purple, violet blue-bonnets (voloshki); the yellow broom lifted on high its pyramidal tower; the white clover, with its umbrella-like bonnets, mottled the plain; a wheat-stalk, brought from God knows where, was waxing full of seed. Under their slender roots the partridges were running about, thrusting out their necks. The air was full of a thousand different bird-notes. In the sky hung motionless a cloud of hawks, stretching wide their wings and fixing their eyes silently on the grass. The cry of the wild geese moving in clouds was heard from God knows what distant lake. From the grass arose with measured strokes the prairie-gull, and luxuriously bathed herself in the blue waves of the air. Now she was lost in immensity, and was visible only as a lone black speck. Now she swept back on broad wings, and gleamed in the sun. The deuce take you, steppes, how beautiful you are!” (Tchort vas vozmi, styépi, kak vui khoroshi’)