“Those who have analyzed my powers as a writer have not discerned the important element of my nature, or my peculiar bent. Pushkin alone perceived it. He always said that I was especially endowed to bring into relief the trivialities of life, to analyze an ordinary character, to bring to light the little peculiarities which escape general observation. This is, I think, my strong point. The reader resents the baseness of my heroes; after reading the book he returns joyfully to the light of day. I should have been pardoned had I only created picturesque villains; their baseness is what will never be pardoned. A Russian shrinks before the picture of his nothingness.”

We shall see that the largest portion of the later Russian novels were all generated by the spirit of this initiative book, which gives to the Slav literature its peculiar physiognomy, as well as its high moral worth. We find in many a passage in “Dead Souls,” breathing through the mask of raillery and sarcasm, that heavenly sentiment of fraternity, that love for the despised and pity for the suffering, which animate all Dostoyevski’s writing. In another letter he says:—

“Pity for a fallen human creature is a strong Russian trait. There is no spectacle more touching than our people offer when they go to assist and cheer on their way those who are condemned to exile in Siberia. Every one brings what he can; provisions, money, perhaps only a few consoling words. They feel no irritation against the criminal; neither do they indulge in any exaggerated sentiment which would make a hero of him. They do not request his autograph or his likeness; neither do they go to stare at him out of curiosity, as often happens in more civilized parts of Europe. There is here something more; it is not that they wish to make excuses for the criminal, or wrest him from the hands of justice; but they would comfort him in his fallen condition; console him as a brother, as Christ has told us we should console each other.”

In “Dead Souls,” the true sentiment is always masked, which makes it the more telling; but when the first part appeared, in 1842, it was received by some with stupefaction, by others with indignation. Were their countrymen a set of rascals, idiots, and poor wretches, without a single redeeming quality? Gogol wrote: “When I read the first chapters of my book to Pushkin, he was prepared to laugh, as usual whenever he heard anything of mine. But his brow soon clouded, and his face gradually grew serious. When I had finished, he cried, with a choking voice: ‘Oh, God! poor Russia!’”

Many accused the writer of having judged his fellow-countrymen from a sick man’s point of view; and considered him a traducer of mankind. They reminded him that, in spite of the evils of serfdom and the corruption of the administration, there were still plenty of noble hearts and honest people in the empire of Nicholas. The unfortunate author found that he had written too strongly. He must now make explanations, publish public letters and prefaces imploring his readers to suspend their judgment until he produced the second part of the poem, which would counteract the darkness of the first. But such was not the case. No bright visions proceeded from the saddened brain of the caricaturist.

However, every one read the work; and its effect has never ceased increasing as a personification of the Russia of former times. It has for forty years been the foundation of the wit of the entire nation. Every joke has passed into a proverb, and the sayings of its characters have become household words. The foreigner who has not read “Dead Souls” is often puzzled in the course of conversation, for he is ignorant of the family traditions and the ideal ancestors they are continually referring to. Tchitchikof, his coachman Seliphan, and their three horses are, to a Russian, as familiar friends as Don Quixote, Sancho, and Rosinante can be to a Spaniard.

V.

Gogol returned from Rome in 1846. His health rapidly declined, and attacks of fever made any brain-work difficult for him. However, he went on with his work; but his pen betrayed the condition of his nerves. In a crisis of the disease he burned all his books as well as the manuscript of the second part of the poem. He now became absorbed in religious meditations; and, desiring to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, he published his last work, “Letters to my Friends,” in order to raise the necessary funds, and to “entreat their prayers for him,” as he said in his preface. These letters were written in a religious vein, but intermingled with literary arguments; and not one of his satirical works raised up for him so many enemies and such abuse as this religious treatise. It is difficult to account for the intense excitement it produced, and the lengthy arguments it called forth. The second half of the reign of Nicholas is a period but little understood. In the march of ideas of that time, there were already indications of the coming revolutionary movement among the young men, which was entirely opposed to the doctrines brought forward by Gogol. These contained a good deal of philosophy, as well as ancient truths, mingled with some new ideas, which are exactly those of the present day. But these, because they were new, were just what met with the strongest opposition; and he was now accused of taking upon himself the direction of consciences, and of arrogating to himself the right to do so by dint of his intellectual superiority. His letters present a curious combination of Christian humility and literary pride. He was declared to have fallen into mysticism; but any one who now reads his letters carefully cannot call him a mystic. The fact that he gave up writing to recover his health would only be considered at any other epoch reasonable and natural. Tolstoï, who has acted in a similar manner, protests against this epithet being applied to him. He, however, proposes to us a new theology, while Gogol clung to the established dogmas. Possibly what would have been called “mysticism” in 1840 would not have been looked upon as such two centuries earlier, any more than it is a half-century later.

But what became of the poor author in the midst of the tempest he himself had raised? He went to Jerusalem and wandered for a time among its ancient ruins; hardly a wholesome sphere for a sick and morbid soul. Returning to Moscow, he was made welcome in the homes of friends. But the Cossack nature could not rest in any fixed spot. He had no money, for he had given everything he had to the poor. Since 1844 the whole receipts from his works he gave to poor students. He brought with him only a small valise, which was crammed with newspaper articles, criticisms, and pamphlets written against him. This was all he possessed.

A person who lived in a house which he often visited thus described him: “He was short, but the upper part of his body was too long; he walked with an uneven gait, was awkward and ungainly; his hair fell over his forehead in thick locks, and his nose was long and prominent. He conversed but little, and not readily. Occasionally a touch of his old gayety returned, especially when with children, whom he passionately loved. But he soon fell back into his hypochondria.” This description agrees with what Turgenef wrote of him, after his first visit to him. “There was a slight gleam of satire in his heavy eyes, which were small and dark. His expression was somewhat like that of a fox. In his general appearance there was something of the provincial schoolmaster.” Gogol had always been awkward and plain, which naturally produced in him a habitual timidity. This is perhaps why, according to his biographers, no woman ever crossed his path. We can therefore understand why he so rarely wrote of women.