One of Gogol’s contemporaries, the critic V. V. Stasov, recalled that Gogol introduced an entirely new language into Russia, a language that was beloved for its “simplicity, power, precision, striking boldness, and closeness to nature…. All the young people started talking in Gogolian language.”8 Gogol’s language is indeed distinctive, whether because of his Ukrainian–Russian bilingualism or his eccentric personality or some combination of factors. He is accordingly known as one of the most untranslatable of Russian writers. Nevertheless, generations of talented translators have made the effort to bring Gogol’s works to the Anglophone reader. My contribution to this long tradition is meant not in a spirit of competition but of admiration and appreciation, and I have brought to it the experience of decades of reading, studying, and teaching Gogol’s works. The frustration of translation is that no translation is perfect, and no translation will give its readers the original text in all its complexity, ambiguity, and richness. The beauty of translation is that no translation is perfect, and each translator has the opportunity to offer a new imagining of a work of verbal art in a different linguistic medium. I have tried to make the strangeness and wonder of Gogol’s vocabulary and style survive the transition into English, striving to keep Gogol’s inimitable humor and oddity alive. In “The Portrait,” the narrator speaks of great art as lifting the veil from heaven and showing to the human being “a part of his own inner world, filled with sounds and sacred mysteries.” This is what Gogol did in his entire career—and he made people laugh a lot too.
NOTES ON THE TRANSLATION
The original publication dates of the stories included in this volume are:
“The Lost Letter” [Propavshaia gramota], in Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka [Vechera na khutore bliz Dikan’ki], 1831, book 1.
“Viy” [Vii], in Mirgorod, 1835; revised version in Works of Nikolai Gogol [Sochineniia Nikolaia Gogolia], 1842.
“The Portrait” [Portret], in Arabesques [Arabeski], 1835, part 1; revised version in The Contemporary [Sovremennik], book 3, 1842, and in Works of Nikolai Gogol [Sochineniia Nikolaia Gogolia], 1842.
“Nevsky Avenue” [Nevskii prospekt], in Arabesques [Arabeski], 1835, part 2; revised version in Works of Nikolai Gogol [Sochineniia Nikolaia Gogolia], 1842.
“Diary of a Madman,” originally “Scraps from the Diary of a Madman” [Zapiski sumasshedshego, originally Klochki iz zapisok sumasshedshego], in Arabesques [Arabeski], 1835, part 2, and in Works of Nikolai Gogol [Sochineniia Nikolaia Gogolia], 1842.
“The Carriage” [Koliaska], in The Contemporary [Sovremennik], vol. 1, 1836, and in Works of Nikolai Gogol [Sochineniia Nikolaia Gogolia], 1842.
“The Nose” [Nos], in The Contemporary [Sovremennik], vol. 3, 1836, and in Works of Nikolai Gogol [Sochineniia Nikolaia Gogolia], 1842.
“Rome” [Rim], in The Muscovite [Moskvitianin], no. 3, 1842, and in Works of Nikolai Gogol [Sochineniia Nikolaia Gogolia], 1842.
“The Overcoat” [Shinel’], in Works of Nikolai Gogol [Sochineniia N. V. Gogolia], 1842.
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The endnotes to this edition are indebted to the following:
N. V. Gogol’, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 14 vols. (n.p.: AN SSSR, 1937–1952). Abbreviation: Academy PSS.
N. V. Gogol’, Sobranie sochinenii, 7 vols., ed. S. I. Mashinskii and M. B. Khrapchenko (Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1976–1979). Abbreviation: SS Mashinskii.
N. V. Gogol’, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii i pisem v dvadtsati trekh tomakh, ed. Iu. V. Mann et al. (Moscow: Nasledie/Nauka, 2001–). Abbreviation: PSS Mann.
N. V. Gogol’, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii i pisem v semnadtsati tomakh, ed. I. A. Vinogradov and V. A. Voropaev (Moscow-Kyiv: Izdatel’stvo Moskovskoi Patriarkhii, 2009). Abbreviation: PSS 2009.
I. A. Vinogradov, Gogol’ v vospominaniiakh, dnevnikakh, perepiski sovremennikov, 3 vols. (Moscow: IMLI RAI, 2011–13). Abbreviation: Vinogradov.
The translations of “The Lost Letter” and “The Portrait” are based on the text in PSS Mann, vols. 1 and 3. Other stories are based on SS Mashinskii, collated with Academy PSS and PSS 2009.
Note: I have approached PSS 2009 with caution, as it is presented as “a joint Russian-Ukrainian project [… ] called upon to be of service to the Christian enlightenment of people as well as the unification of the Slavic peoples,” and has appeared “with the blessing of the Most Holy Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus’ Kirill and the Most Blessed Metropolitan of Kiev and all Ukraine Vladimir.” I have consulted this edition for its factual information and not for its interpretations.
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Russian names consist of a first name, a patronymic, and a last name. The patronymic is formed from the father’s first name plus the suffix -ovich/-evich for men or -ovna/-evna for women. Russian also uses a wide array of diminutives for the first name. In “The Overcoat,” the main character’s name is Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin, which signifies that his father’s first name was Akaky. Bashmachkin, not Akakievich, is his last name. People are referred to either by their first names (or nicknames like Vanya for Ivan), first names plus patronymic, or last names. Only in rare cases is a person (usually a peasant or someone of the lower classes) referred to only by their patronymic, as is the case with the tailor Petrovich in “The Overcoat.” We learn that his first name is Grigory, but we never learn his last name.
“Little Russia” was the term used in the Russian Empire to refer to what is now Ukraine. The term “Ukrainian” referring to the ethnic group living in the area and its language did not come into wide use until the end of the nineteenth century. In this translation, I have preserved Gogol’s use of the term “Little Russia” and “Little Russian.” Ukrainian place names are given in Ukrainian, not Russian, transliteration.
There is no precise English word for the Russian “chukhonets/chukonka,” a derogatory term for people of Finno-Ugric origin living in St. Petersburg. I have translated it as “Finn” or “Finnish.”
Gogol sprinkles his texts with foreign words (Ukrainian, German, Italian). Sometimes he provides translations in the text, sometimes not. When the translations provided are Gogol’s, they are given in parentheses. Translations provided by me are provided in the notes: simple glosses as footnotes; more elaborate information in the back matter.
The transliteration is a greatly simplified version of the Library of Congress system (although for citations of scholarly works I have used the Library of Congress system). When dates are mentioned that are from the Julian calendar used in Russia before the Revolution, they are noted as “OS” (“Old Style”).
An earlier version of my translation of “The Portrait” was published in 2006 by Pegasus Publishers in Amsterdam as a deluxe limited edition with artwork by Leon Steinmetz.
TABLE OF RANKS
The Table of Ranks of all Military, Government, and Court Positions was ratified on January 24, 1722 (February 4 NS), under Tsar Peter I. Although it was changed at various times, it remained the fundamental framework for the hierarchical life of tsarist Russia. This version has been simplified for ease of reference. Navy and court ranks have been omitted. A helpful source on the significance of the Table of Ranks for Russian literature is Irina Reyfman, How Russia Learned to Write: Literature and the Imperial Table of Ranks (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2016).
CIVIL RANKS ARMY RANKS
1 Chancellor Field marshal
2 Actual privy councillor General
3 Privy councillor Lieutenant general
4 Actual state councillor Major general
5 State councillor Brigadier-general (1722–1796)
6 Collegiate councillor Colonel
7 Court councillor Lieutenant colonel
8 Collegiate assessor Major
9 Titular councillor Captain
10 Collegiate secretary Staff captain
11 Ship secretary ———
12 Gubernial secretary Lieutenant
13 Provincial secretar
y Second lieutenant
14 Collegiate registrar Ensign
The Lost Letter
A True Story, Told by the Lector of *** Church
So you want me to tell you another story about my granddad? Well, all right, why shouldn’t I tell you another funny little story? Oh, the old, bygone days! What joy, what a feeling of freedom and merrymaking descends on your heart when you hear about what happened on this earth long, long ago, so long ago that it has no year or month! And then if some kinsman of yours, a grandfather or great-grandfather, gets mixed up in it—well, then forget about it: May I choke while singing the akathist hymn to the great martyr Barbara if it doesn’t seem as if you’re doing it all yourself, as if you’ve crawled into your great-granddad’s soul or his soul is making mischief inside of you…1
It’s our maidens and young wives who keep after me the worst of all. As soon as I come in sight, it’s “Foma Grigorievich, Foma Grigorievich! Can’t you tell us some really scary story? Come on, come on!” and da-da-da-da-da, they just won’t stop.2 Of course I don’t mind telling them a story, but just look what happens to them when they get in bed. I know for sure that each one of them is just trembling under her blanket like she has a fever, and she’d love to hide her head in her sheepskin coat. Just let a rat scratch around a clay pot, or let her catch her foot on the poker, and God help us!—she’s scared out of her mind. But the next day it’s as if nothing happened; she starts bothering me again to tell her a scary story.
So what should I tell you? Nothing much is coming to mind right away… All right, I’ll tell you how the witches played “fools” with my late granddad.3 But I beg you in advance, ladies and gentlemen, not to interrupt and get me off track, or you’ll end up with the kind of pudding you’d be ashamed even to taste.
My late granddad, I must tell you, was one of the more distinguished Cossacks of his day. He knew his ABCs and he knew the abbreviations they use in the church books. On a holiday he’d rattle off the Epistle Book in such a dashing way that he’d put even some of today’s priest’s sons to shame. Well, you know yourself that in those days, if you gathered together all the literate men in the whole town of Baturyn, there’d be no need to hold out your hat to catch them—you could fit them all into the palm of one hand.4 So it’s not a bit surprising that everyone he met would bow to him almost to the waist.
One day the grand hetman of the Cossacks took it into his head to send a letter to the empress for some reason.5 The regimental scribe, damn it to hell if I can remember his nickname—it wasn’t Snotnose, it wasn’t Ropey, it wasn’t Bare-Butt Fledgling—all I know is, he had some really weird nickname—anyway, he summoned my granddad and told him that the hetman himself was assigning him as a courier with a letter to the empress. Granddad didn’t like to spend a long time getting ready. He sewed the letter into his cap, he led out his horse, he gave a smacking kiss to his wife and his two piglets, as he called them, one of whom was the father of your humble servant, and he kicked up such dust when he set out, it seemed as if fifteen lads had started playing ball in the middle of the street.
The next day, before the cock crowed a fourth time, Granddad was already in Konotop.6 There was a fair going on at that time, and so many people had thronged in the streets that it dazzled the eyes. But since it was so early, they were all still sleeping, stretched out on the ground. Near a cow lay a young carouser with a nose as red as a bullfinch’s breast; a little farther on, a secondhand dealer sat snoring with her stock of flints, laundry bluing, shot, and bagels; under a cart lay a Gypsy; a chumak* lay on a wagon full of fish; in the very middle of the road a bearded Rooskie lay outstretched with his belts and gauntlets… well, you know, all sorts of riffraff, like always at a fair.7 Granddad stopped to take a good look at it all. Meanwhile things started stirring in the fair tents. The Jewesses started clanking bottles, smoke came billowing out in rings here and there, and the smell of hot baked goodies wafted through the whole encampment. It occurred to Granddad that he had neither tinderbox nor tobacco on hand, so he started wandering about the fair. He had hardly gone twenty steps when a Zaporozhian Cossack appeared, coming toward him. A real carouser, you could tell by his face! Wide trousers as red as fire, a dark-blue jerkin, a bright multicolored sash, at his side a saber and a long-stemmed pipe with a brass chain that hung to his very feet—a Zaporozhian plain and simple! What a fine folk! One of them’ll take a stance, draw himself up, run his hand over his dashing mustache, click his iron-capped heels—and set himself in motion! And how he’ll set off: His legs will be dancing away like a spindle in a woman’s hands. Like a whirlwind he’ll run his hand over all the strings of the bandura, and right then, arms akimbo, he’ll rush into a squatting Cossack dance. He’ll burst out into song—your soul just goes on a spree! No, that time has passed. You don’t see Zaporozhians any more!8
So, they met each other. If you get to talking, it doesn’t take long to become acquainted. They started gabbing and gabbing so that Granddad almost forgot about his journey. They started up a drinking bout like at a wedding right before Lent. Finally they got tired of breaking pots and throwing money at people, and after all, the fair wasn’t going to last forever! The new friends agreed that they shouldn’t part and should continue their journey together. It had long since become evening when they rode out into the fields. The sun had gone off to rest; in its place a few reddish strips were shining here and there; the grain fields made a multicolored pattern like the holiday skirts of dark-browed young wives. Our Zaporozhian was overcome by an irresistible urge to talk. Granddad and another carouser who had joined them started thinking that maybe some demon had gotten into him, and that’s where all this was coming from: such strange stories and embellishments that several times Granddad split his sides and almost strained his stomach with laughing. But the farther they went into the fields the duskier it got, and at the same time the dashing fellow’s talk got more and more incoherent. Finally our storyteller fell completely silent and would shudder at the slightest rustling.
“Hey, hey, brother, you’ve really started dozing off. You seem to be wanting to go home and lie down on the stove!”
“I have no reason to hide anything from you,” he said, suddenly turning around and fixing them with his eyes. “I’ll have you know I sold my soul to the Evil One long ago.”
“So what else is new? Who hasn’t had dealings with the powers of evil once in a while? That’s just why you need to go on an out-and-out drunk.”
“Oh, lads! I’d love to, but this very night is the hour of reckoning for this young daredevil! Oh, brothers!” he said, slapping them on the arms, “don’t betray me! Just stay awake for one night! I’ll never forget your friendship!”9
Why not help out a fellow with such a misfortune? Granddad declared right away that he’d rather let his forelock be cut off and his own head along with it than allow the devil to sniff out a Christian soul with his dog’s snout.10
Our Cossacks would perhaps have ridden on, if night had not enveloped the sky as if with a sheet of black sackcloth, and if it had not become as dark in the field as under a sheepskin coat. All that could be seen was a single little light in the distance, and the horses, sensing that a stable was near, pricked up their ears and peered into the darkness. It seemed as if the little light came flying to meet them, and the Cossacks saw before them a tavern that was toppling to one side like a woman coming home from a jolly christening. In those days the taverns weren’t like the ones we have now. Not only was there no room for a good man to spread out and start in on a “dove dance” or a gopak, there wasn’t even anywhere to lie down when the booze would go to his head and send him walking in the shape of the letter P.11 The courtyard was all filled with the wagons of chumaks. Under the sheds, in the mangers, in the entryway, they were snoring like tomcats—some curled up into a ball, others all stretched out. Only the tavern keeper stood in front of a lamp cutting notches on a stick to count how many quarts and half-quarts the chumaks had drained.
Granddad asked for a third of a pail of vodka for the three of them and set off for the barn. All three lay down next to one another. He had hardly had time to turn around before he saw that his countrymen were sleeping the sleep of the dead. Granddad woke up the third Cossack who had joined them and reminded him about the promise they had given their comrade. The man raised himself up a bit, rubbed his eyes for a moment, and fell asleep again. There was nothing else to do, Granddad was going to have to keep watch all by himself. In order to somehow ward off sleep, he went around inspecting all the wagons, he checked on the horses, he lit up his pipe, then he came back and sat down near his friends. Everything was quiet, so quiet that it seemed not even a fly was flying by. Then he had a vision of something gray showing its horns to him from under a nearby wagon… At this point his eyes started to close so tightly that he kept having to rub them with his fist and wash them out with the remaining vodka. But as soon as his eyes would clear up a bit, it would all be for naught. Finally, a little later, the monster again showed himself from under the wagon… Granddad bulged out his eyes as much as he could, but the damned sleepiness kept covering everything in a fog. His hands went numb, his head rolled down, and a deep sleep overtook him so that he slumped down like a dead man.
The Nose and Other Stories Page 2