Gogol's 1842 Russian fiction follows Pavel Chichikov, a mysterious gentleman who travels through provincial towns purchasing "dead souls"—deceased serfs still counted on tax rolls. Through Chichikov's bizarre scheme, the novel exposes the absurdities of Russian bureaucracy and serfdom. Translated by D. J. Hogarth.
To the door of an inn in the provincial town of N. there drew up a smart britchka--a light spring-carriage of the sort affected by bachelors, retired lieutenant-colonels, staff-captains, land-owners possessed of about a hundred souls, and, in short, all persons who rank as gentlemen of the intermediate category. In the britchka was seated such a gentleman--a man who, though not handsome, was not ill-favoured, not over-fat, and not over-thin. Also, though not over-elderly, he was not over-young. His arrival produced no stir in the town, and was accompanied by no particular incident, beyond that a couple of peasants who happened to be standing at the door of a dramshop exchanged a few comments with reference to the equipage rather than to the individual who was seated in it. “Look at that carriage,” one of them said to the other. “Think you it will be going as far as Moscow?” “I think it w…Continue reading →
This is the D. J. Hogarth translation, a public-domain English text. Marginalia presents it unabridged, with chapter navigation, your reading position saved, and optional AI commentary on any passage.
A Ukrainian-born writer who transformed Russian literature in the 1800s, this master of satirical realism exposed the absurdities of czarist society through darkly comic tales like "The Nose" and "The Overcoat." His psychological insights and grotesque yet sympathetic characters profoundly influenced Dostoyevsky, Kafka, and countless others who explored the human condition. All works by Nikolai Gogol →
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