Gogol's Wife

by Tommaso Landolfi

  After a certain time Nikolai Vassilevitch seemed to pluck up courage. He burst into tears, but somehow they were more manly tears. He wrung his hands again, seized mine in his, and walked up and down, muttering: “That’s enough! We can’t have any more of this. This is an unheard of thing. How can such a thing be happening to me? How can a man be expected to put up with this?”

  He then leapt furiously upon the pump, the existence of which he seemed just to have remembered, and, with it in his hand, dashed like a whirlwind to Caracas. He inserted the tube in her anus and began to inflate her. . . . Weeping the while, he shouted like one possessed: “Oh, how I love her, how I love her, my poor, poor darling! . . . But she’s going to burst! Unhappy Caracas, most pitiable of God’s creatures! But die she must!”

  Caracas was swelling up. Nikolai Vassilevitch sweated, wept and pumped. I wished to stop him but, I know not why, I had not the courage. She began to become deformed and shortly assumed the most monstrous aspect; and yet she had not given any signs of alarm—she was used to these jokes. But when she began to feel unbearably full, or perhaps when Nikolai Vassilevitch’s intentions became plain to her, she took on an expression of bestial amazement, even a little beseeching, but still without losing that disdainful look. She was afraid, she was even committing herself to his mercy, but still she could not believe in the immediate approach of her fate; she could not believe in the frightful audacity of her husband. He could not see her face because he was behind her. But I looked at her with fascination, and did not move a finger.

  At last the internal pressure came through the fragile bones at the base of her skull, and printed on her face an indescribable rictus. Her belly, her thighs, her lips, her breasts and what I could see of her buttocks had swollen to incredible proportions. All of a sudden she belched, and gave a long hissing groan; both these phenomena one could explain by the increase in pressure, which had suddenly forced a way out through the valve in her throat. Then her eyes bulged frantically, threatening to jump out of their sockets. Her ribs flared wide apart and were no longer attached to the sternum, and she resembled a python digesting a donkey. A donkey, did I say? An ox! An elephant! At this point I believed her already dead, but Nikolai Vassilevitch, sweating, weeping and repeating: “My dearest! My beloved! My best!” continued to pump.

  She went off unexpectedly and, as it were, all of a piece. It was not one part of her skin which gave way and the rest which followed, but her whole surface at the same instant. She scattered in the air. The pieces fell more or less slowly, according to their size, which was in no case above a very restricted one. I distinctly remember a piece of her cheek, with some lip attached, hanging on the corner of the mantelpiece. Nikolai Vassilevitch stared at me like a madman. Then he pulled himself together and, once more with furious determination, he began carefully to collect those poor rags which once had been the shining skin of Caracas, and all of her.

  “Good-by, Caracas,” I thought I heard him murmur, “Good-by! You were too pitiable!” And then suddenly and quite audibly: “The fire! The fire! She too must end up in the fire.” He crossed himself—with his left hand, of course. Then, when he had picked up all those shriveled rags, even climbing on the furniture so as not to miss any, he threw them straight on the fire in the hearth, where they began to burn slowly and with an excessively unpleasant smell. Nikolai Vassilevitch, like all Russians, had a passion for throwing important things in the fire.

  Red in the face, with an inexpressible look of despair, and yet of sinister triumph too, he gazed on the pyre of those miserable remains. He had seized my arm and was squeezing it convulsively. But those traces of what had once been a being were hardly well alight when he seemed yet again to pull himself together, as if he were suddenly remembering something or taking a painful decision. In one bound he was out of the room.

  A few seconds later I heard him speaking to me through the door in a broken, plaintive voice: “Foma Paskalovitch, I want you to promise not to look. Golubchik, promise not to look at me when I come in.”

  I don’t know what I answered, or whether I tried to reassure him in any way. But he insisted, and I had to promise him, as if he were a child, to hide my face against the wall and only turn round when he said I might. The door then opened violentily and Nikolai Vassilevitch burst into the room and ran to the fireplace.

  And here I must confess my weakness, though I consider it justified by the extraordinary circumstances. I looked round before Nikolai Vassilevitch told me I could; it was stronger than me. I was just in time to see him carrying something in his arms, something which he threw on the fire with all the rest, so that it suddenly flared up. At that, since the desire to see had entirely mastered every other thought in me, I dashed to the fireplace. But Nikolai Vassilevitch placed himself between me and it and pushed me back with a strength of which I had not believed him capable. Meanwhile the object was burning and giving off clouds of smoke. And before he showed any sign of calming down there was nothing left but a heap of silent ashes.

  The true reason why I wished to see was because I had already glimpsed. But it was only a glimpse, and perhaps I should not allow myself to introduce even the slightest element of uncertainty into this true story. And yet, an eyewitness account is not complete without a mention of that which the witness knows with less than complete certainty. To cut a long story short, that something was a baby. Not a flesh and blood baby, of course, but more something in the line of a rubber doll or a model. Something, which, to judge by its appearance, could have been called Caracas’ son.

  Was I mad too? That I do not know, but I do know that this was what I saw, not clearly, but with my own eyes. And I wonder why it was that when I was writing this just now I didn’t mention that when Nikolai Vassilevitch came back into the room he was muttering between his clenched teeth: “Him too! Him too!”

  And that is the sum of my knowledge of Nikolai Vassilevitch’s wife. In the next chapter I shall tell what happened to him afterwards, and that will be the last chapter of his life. But to give an interpretation of his feelings for his wife, or indeed for anything, is quite another and more difficult matter, though I have attempted it elsewhere in this volume, and refer the reader to that modest effort. I hope I have thrown sufficient light on a most controversial question and that I have unveiled the mystery, if not of Gogol, then at least of his wife. In the course of this I have implicitly given the lie to the insensate accusation that he ill-treated or even beat his wife, as well as other like absurdities. And what else can be the goal of a humble biographer such as the present writer but to serve the memory of that lofty genius who is the object of his study?

  Translated by Wayland Young

  Pastoral

  DEAREST Solange:

  You were utterly mistaken. I have waited till now, till I was quite certain, before telling you so; and now I can tell you in all honesty—“I can really tell you” as the worthy Madame de Caulaincourt puts it. To imagine that I could not bear to live here for longer than a week! Solange, this is heaven on earth. And think of this: I have been here for nearly two months. If you only knew, my dearest, how I bless the inspiration that brought me to this place—my uncle’s inspiration, too, in doing his duty by dying at the right time. Say what you will, my uncertain budget was hardly aided by the Empress’s balls, or by my frequent visits to the Palais Royal. Here, the delightful and the sensible are united. I taste, for example, the pleasures of possessions—or rather, of property—in a way impossible with Parisian bankers, who do what they please with your money when they see that you know nothing of finance. In any case, I cannot leave everything in the hands of the agent here. I do not wish to speak ill of my late uncle’s régime; but the agent has already bought himself two houses in the village, and a piece of land in the neighborhood. But I did not mean to speak of this matter; and it is certainly not for this reason that I bless my resolution. My poor Solange, how can you know, how can I tell you, of the unsullied joys of country life, of this delicious
new world?

  In short, picture me, the happy mistress of a real castle and of a large estate—and the conscientious administrator of the latter. I often wander in my carriage through my woods, which the autumn is already beginning to touch with gold. I often go to the village, which, I may add, also belongs to me, with its simple inhabitants (the agent’s affairs are in hand). I confess that the carriage creaks a little; and that the coachman and his groom have not the philosophical air and the carefully cultivated mustaches of their Parisian colleagues—and I cannot understand a word they say. But, by way of compensation, their liveries are far more attractive.

  Paris! Of course I will return there sometimes, perhaps often. But—dare I say it?—the whole world of Paris now seems to me like a bad dream.

  You should not think that I am afflicted by solitude. The more or less noble landowners of the district have hastened to call on me; most of them, of course, are insupportably provincial, stupid and bigoted. But among them there is one . . . a man who . . . I might as well speak plainly. He is young, dashing, romantic. He rides like an Englishman. He reads the poets and recites them ardently . . . well, why not? After all, he bears one of the oldest names of the region. Like me, he is free and independent. But I can hear you ask, “What do you mean: why not?” Well, my love, I can tell you no more of this now.

  This letter has already continued too long. Will you have time, I wonder, between your entertainments and balls to read it? Certainly not to meditate over it; nor dare I hope that you will be able to tear yourself for a few days away from the maelstrom of your life in Paris and allow me to embrace you again. Farewell, then, I will send you more news of me very soon.

  Anne

  2

  Darling Solange, it is I. So much time has passed since we met, and even since we last corresponded. But I have had so many and such pleasant things to do.

  Very well, you want to know how the people here start to hibernate at the beginning of winter—and we are almost there. It is easily said: they do nothing in particular; they make no preparations—except a solemn feast, with appropriate potations, the day before they settle down. There are no lits embaumés, no ointments, no purging of blood or vapors, no injections, no attendants, no fussy quarantine, none of the many operations usual at our (but now I should say “your”) maisons de léthargie. And without any of this things seem to go excellently by themselves—though you would find it hard to convince the Paris specialists! And do you know where they hibernate? Certainly not in “carefully conditioned surroundings,” or wrapped in a “softly reacting substance which . . .” etc., etc., but simply where they happen to be, or where they will—in the kitchen, perhaps, or the hayloft—wrapped in a goatskin, of the kind they use for wineskins or bagpipes. More precisely, it seems that they have themselves suspended, or suspend themselves, from beams in the ceiling—and so good night! I have in fact seen, a few days ago, some of these goatskins, or rather bags made of skins (for one skin would not be enough for a child), hanging from a beam, when I was visiting a large and needy family. They were empty, of course; but their use was explained to me. The hairy side is turned inward, and, at one extremity, there is an extension for the legs. In these bags they remain seated, or almost so; so that, with the softer parts of their bodies weighing down, they hang there like so many kitchen vessels. I will give you further details of this, for I feel that it will not be long before the hibernation begins. Another thing: the number of people in Paris who hibernate is severely limited—for all I know, negligible. Indeed, among us (I mean, among you) nobody hibernates except those who are so poor that they have not even a dry crust to eat, or some old general in retirement, or some hysterical woman who cannot bear the cold, and so on. But here the practice is by far more common and extends even to the young, even to children.

  Well, we will see. I will keep you informed; but I have nothing more of interest to tell you now. Remember me.

  A

  3

  Dear Solange:

  The winter is advancing with giant strides, indeed it has already arrived in these parts; and the people here are beginning to hibernate. I can no longer keep count of the bags hanging from the beams during my visits of charity. They—the bags, I mean—give off a foetid odor like bladders of lard, and soot is already gathering on their surface, for they are nearly all in the kitchens. The spectacle is certainly repellent—but, above all, surprising. Besides I must timidly confess that I have never before seen a human being hibernating. Yes, yes, I know that you will laugh at me; after being very wise about it in my last letter, I now remember that, at one time in Paris, the practice was quite fashionable among unhappy lovers (who even tried to prolong the period of insensibility indefinitely); so that one who has ever been a woman of the world should almost feel ashamed not to be minutely informed about it. But, with humility, I repeat that I had never seen a human being hibernating. In truth one cannot be said to see them hibernating here, since they hang like blocks of wood; one cannot even hear them breathe. How strange these people are, who do not hesitate to subtract the entire winter from their span of life!

  In my admitted ignorance, I wonder whether this practice is really a practice, in the sense of a habit? Or whether it is in some way connected with the nature of these people and of all those, in general, given to hibernation? Or is it a habit which has become second nature to them? I do not know what to think, or even, as you see, how to frame the question properly. If we are to judge by the unhappy lovers of Paris, we may conclude that hibernation is a voluntary action; and yet. . . . But why do I burden myself with these reflections . . . unless it is another consequence of living here? In any case, listen to this.

  A few days ago I saw, in one of the poor houses, a tiny and charming little boy, whom I already knew—one of my little friends, in fact. They were preparing him for hibernation. He was yawning and rubbing his eyes, and did not seem in the least discontented. But I could not bear the thought that four or five months of that young life would be thrown away. I spoke to the family and told them that I was prepared to take him with me for the winter. I meant not only that I would relieve them of a mouth to feed, but also that I would try to keep him awake and maintain his interest in life. They only understood part of my meaning. The little boy was consulted; he mumbled something indistinct but did not seem to oppose my suggestion. To cut a long story short, I took him with me to the castle. It would be quite useless to try to describe to you the efforts which I made to keep him lively and in good spirits, or even awake—I mean, literally, awake. I failed completely. Nothing amused him, nothing interested him; he yawned continually and seemed to desire nothing but to fall asleep. Indeed he did go to sleep all over the house, in my arms when I was talking to him, while he was eating the rarest delicacies. And he was by no means a stupid child, as I had been able to observe before this languor had overcome him. In the end, I had to take him back, sound asleep, to his family, who, with a smile hinting that they had expected no other outcome, returned him without further ado into his bag—and added: “Shall we talk about it again—in April?”

  Well, what do you say to that? Ah, why do you write to me so seldom? Why do you tell me nothing of Paris and of your life? Do you think that I have become altogether a savage? Farewell—write to me soon.

  A

  4

  Solange, my dear:

  I begin to be alarmed; I can no longer hide it either from myself or from you. An unbelievable number of people here have already fallen asleep. Wherever I go, I see nothing but hideous, foetid bags hanging from the ceilings. And one incident sums it up. Do you remember that in my first letter I spoke of a noble and romantic young man who . . . who was paying his addresses to me? Very well then, he—yes, he . . . oh, Solange! Yesterday we were in my drawing room. I had played a little. He, in his turn, had recited a poem, written by himself, whose inspiration only modesty prevents me from revealing to you. The hour was propitious for our hearts to declare themselves. I was at that very moment
thinking that the time had come when I could give him some grounds for hope, that there was no reason in the world why I should not do so. He had seized my hand, and I had abandoned it to him, when . . . ah, my friend, how can I tell you? Behind his gaze, I saw with horror the beginning of a sort of languor, not of the kind you would have imagined, but terribly like a sort of dullness, even of indifference—the indifference of a man who is on the point of falling asleep. Think, Solange, at that very moment of all moments he was beginning to fall asleep! For a little while he held my hand in his, doing nothing, gazing at me ever more childishly, apparently oblivious of our critical conjuncture and of everything else. Then he drew back a little, dropped my poor damp hand, yawned (still, I confess, with urbanity), walked to the window, tapped on the glass, protested something about a headache, mumbled something else incomprehensible, and, without even taking his leave (I was too dismayed to speak) took to his heels. This is the whole story. Today I am told that he has started to hibernate. Oh, no doubt his bag will be made of sables. My God! What else can I say but “My God”?