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  THE
  MANTLE
  AND OTHER STORIES




  Printed in Great Britain




  THE MANTLE AND
  OTHER STORIES

  BY
  NICHOLAS GOGOL

  AUTHOR OF
  "DEAD SOULS," "TARAS BULBA," ETC.

  TRANSLATED BY CLAUD FIELD

  AND WITH AN INTRODUCTION ON GOGOL
  BY
  PROSPER MERIMEE

  New York: FREDERICK A. STOKES Co.
  London: T. WERNER LAURIE LIMITED




"Gogol, Nikolai Vassilievitch. Born in the government of Pultowa, March
31 (N.S.), 1809, died at Moscow, March 4 (N.S.), 1852. A Russian
novelist and dramatist. He was educated in a public gymnasium at
Pultowa, and subsequently in the lyceum, then newly established, at
Niejinsk. In 1831 he was appointed teacher of history at the Patriotic
Institution, a place which he exchanged in 1834 for the professorship of
history in the University of St Petersburg. This he resigned at the end
of a year and devoted himself entirely to literature. In 1836 Gogol left
Russia. He lived most of the time in Rome. In 1837 he wrote 'Dead
Souls.' In 1840 he went to Russia for a short period in order to
superintend the publication of the first volume of 'Dead Souls,' and
then returned to Italy. In 1846 he returned to Russia and fell into a
state of fanatical mysticism. One of his last acts was to burn the
manuscript of the concluding portion of 'Dead Souls,' which he
considered harmful. He also wrote 'The Mantle,' 'Evenings at the Farm,'
'St Petersburg Stories,' 'Taras Bulba,' a tale of the Cossacks, 'The
Revizor,' a comedy, etc."--From _The Century Cyclopaedia of Names_.




CONTENTS


                          PAGE

  PREFACE                    7

  THE MANTLE                19

  THE NOSE                  67

  MEMOIRS OF A MADMAN      107

  A MAY NIGHT              141

  THE VIY                  187




PREFACE


As a novel-writer and a dramatist, Gogol appears to me to deserve a
minute study, and if the knowledge of Russian were more widely spread,
he could not fail to obtain in Europe a reputation equal to that of the
best English humorists.

A delicate and close observer, quick to detect the absurd, bold in
exposing, but inclined to push his fun too far, Gogol is in the first
place a very lively satirist. He is merciless towards fools and rascals,
but he has only one weapon at his disposal--irony. This is a weapon
which is too severe to use against the merely absurd, and on the other
hand it is not sharp enough for the punishment of crime; and it is
against crime that Gogol too often uses it. His comic vein is always too
near the farcical, and his mirth is hardly contagious. If sometimes he
makes his reader laugh, he still leaves in his mind a feeling of
bitterness and indignation; his satires do not avenge society, they only
make it angry.

As a painter of manners, Gogol excels in familiar scenes. He is akin to
Teniers and Callot. We feel as though we had seen and lived with his
characters, for he shows us their eccentricities, their nervous habits,
their slightest gestures. One lisps, another mispronounces his words,
and a third hisses because he has lost a front tooth. Unfortunately
Gogol is so absorbed in this minute study of details that he too often
forgets to subordinate them to the main action of the story. To tell the
truth, there is no ordered plan in his works, and--a strange trait in an
author who sets up as a realist--he takes no care to preserve an
atmosphere of probability. His most carefully painted scenes are
clumsily connected--they begin and end abruptly; often the author's
great carelessness in construction destroys, as though wantonly, the
illusion produced by the truth of his descriptions and the naturalness
of his conversations.

The immortal master of this school of desultory but ingenious and
attractive story-tellers, among whom Gogol is entitled to a high place,
is Rabelais, who cannot be too much admired and studied, but to imitate
whom nowadays would, I think, be dangerous and difficult. In spite of
the indefinable grace of his obsolete language, one can hardly read
twenty pages of Rabelais in succession. One soon wearies of this
eloquence, so original and so eloquent, but the drift of which escapes
every reader except some Oedipuses like Le Duchat or Eloi Johanneau.
Just as the observation of animalculae under the microscope fatigues the
eye, so does the perusal of these brilliant pages tire the mind.
Possibly not a word of them is superfluous, but possibly also they might
be entirely eliminated from the work of which they form part, without
sensibly detracting from its merit. The art of choosing among the
innumerable details which nature offers us is, after all, much more
difficult than that of observing them with attention and recording them
with exactitude.

The Russian language, which is, as far as I can judge, the richest of
all the European family, seems admirably adapted to express the most
delicate shades of thought. Possessed of a marvellous conciseness and
clearness, it can with a single word call up several ideas, to express
which in another tongue whole phrases would be necessary. French,
assisted by Greek and Latin, calling to its aid all its northern and
southern dialects--the language of Rabelais, in fact, is the only one
which can convey any idea of this suppleness and this energy. One can
imagine that such an admirable instrument may exercise a considerable
influence on the mind of a writer who is capable of handling it. He
naturally takes delight in the picturesqueness of its expressions, just
as a draughtsman with skill and a good pencil will trace delicate
contours. An excellent gift, no doubt, but there are few things which
have not their disadvantages. Elaborate execution is a considerable
mer