Dead Souls

Tchitchikov comes to town and beguiles the locals with his expertly-refined respectful and flattering inclination of the head. Gogal portrays the various caricaturish land owners with comic brilliance.



“At last he sniffed out something about his private life: he found out that he had a rather mature daughter whose face also looked as if the devil had threshed peas on it.”

“... the by-roads ran zig-zagging to and fro like crabs when they are shaken out of a sack... “

“... as soon as a petitioner came forward and thrust his hand into his pocket in order to extract therefrom the familiar letters of recommendation signed by Prince Hovansky, as the expression is among us in Russia—“No, no,” he would say with a smile, stopping the petitioner's hand, “do you imagine that I ... no, no! this is our duty, the work we are bound to do without any recompense!”

“The postmaster cried out, slapped himself on the forehead and called himself a calf publicly before them all. He could not understand how the circumstance had not occurred to him at the beginning of the story, and confessed that the saying, “The Russian is wise after the event,” was perfectly true.”

“It was an apparition, like the sudden appearance of a drowned man at the surface of the water, that calls forth a shout of joy in the crowd upon the bank; but in vain the rejoicing brothers and sisters let down a cord from the bank .”

“... have saved the situation is wasted on all sorts of ways of inducing forgetfulness. The mind from which, perhaps, great resources might have sprung sleeps; and the estate is knocked down at auction and the owner is cast adrift to forget his troubles with his soul ready in his extremity for base deeds at which he would once have been horrified.”

“The odour of Petrushka, the footman, made an effort to establish itself in the vestibule adjoining, but Petrushka was soon banished to the kitchen, which was indeed a more suitable place for him.”

“... and wait for another glimpse of the back or the arms exhausted with struggling—that appearance was the last. All is still and the unrippled surface of the implacable element is still more terrible and desolate than before. So the face of Plyushkin, after the feeling that glided for an instant over it, looked harder and meaner than ever.”

“And at last he began prancing up and down and rubbing his hands, and humming and murmuring, and putting his fist to his mouth blew a march on it as on a trumpet, and even uttered aloud a few encouraging words and nicknames addressed to himself, such as “bulldog” and “little cockerel.”

“Whereupon the two gentlemen, going up to the table which was laid with savouries, duly drank a glass of vodka each; they took a preliminary snack as is done all over the vast expanse of Russia, throughout the towns and villages, that is, tasted various salt dishes and other stimulating dainties; then all proceeded to the dining-room; the hostess sailed in at their head like a goose swimming.”

“... no money, nor even estates with or without improvements can procure a digestion like that of a middle-class gentleman.”

“Upon my word, my dear fellow, what Jewish propensities you have! You ought simply to give them to me.”

“... the dappled grey was doubtless longing for a sermon, for the reins were always slack and the whip was merely passed over their backs as a matter of form when the garrulous driver was holding forth.”

“Why do you tell me that my estate is in a bad way, my lad?” says the landowner to his steward, “I know that, my dear fellow, without your telling me; have you nothing better than that to say? Let me forget it; let me not know it, then I shall be happy.” And so the money which might to some extent”

“Tchitchikov looked: the sleeve of his quite new dress-coat was completely spoilt. “Plague take you, you confounded little imp!” he muttered to himself in his wrath.”

“The lawyer impressed Tchitchikov by the coldness of his expression and the greasiness of his dressing-gown, which was in striking contrast to the very good mahogany furniture, the gold clock under a glass shade, the chandelier that peeped through a muslin cover, put on to preserve it, and in fact to all the objects round them which bore the unmistakable imprint of enlightened European culture.”

Gogol's Diary of a Madman is one of my favorite books. This one was definitely worth reading because of some wonderful turns of phrase, and memorable characters, but in the end just didn't resonate with me. The main theme of social critique feels sort of dated–not that we don't still have similar problems, but because the problems are so obvious and ubiquitous; they don't need pointing out or skewering for me at this point.