The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol

by Nikolai Gogol

  Everyone became concerned with the affair. To the credit of our national pride, it must be noted that there always dwells in the Russian heart a beautiful impulse to take the side of the oppressed. The courtier who had betrayed his trust was duly punished and dismissed from his post. But in the faces of his compatriots he read a much greater punishment. This was a decided and universal scorn. It is impossible to describe how the vain soul suffered; pride, disappointed ambition, ruined hopes all joined together, and in fits of terrible madness and rage his life broke off.

  "Another spectacular example also occurred before everyone's eyes. Among the beauties of whom there was no lack in our northern capital, one decidedly held primacy over the rest.

  She was some miraculous blend of our northern beauty with Mediterranean beauty, a diamond that rarely occurs in the world. My father used to confess that he had never in his life seen anything like her. It seemed that everything came together in her: wealth, intelligence, and inner charm. She had a crowd of wooers, and the most remarkable of them was Prince R., the noblest, the best of all young men, beautiful both in looks and in his chivalrous, magnanimous impulses—the lofty ideal of novels and women, a Grandison21 in all respects. Prince R. was passionately and madly in love with her; and he was reciprocated with the same burning love.

  But her family thought the match unequal. The prince's hereditary estates had long ceased to belong to him, his family was in disgrace, and the poor state of his affairs was known to everyone. Suddenly the prince leaves the capital for a time, supposedly in order to straighten out his affairs, and a short while later he reappears surrounded with unbelievable magnificence and splendor. Brilliant balls and banquets make him known at court. The beauty's father turns favorable, and in town a most interesting wedding takes place. Whence came such a change and the bridegroom's unheard-of wealth—that certainly no one could explain; but people murmured on the side that he had entered into certain conditions with the incomprehensible moneylender and taken a loan from him. Be that as it may, the wedding occupied the whole town. Both bride and groom were objects of general envy. Everybody knew of their ardent, constant love, the long languishing suffered on both sides, the high merits of both. Fiery women described beforehand the paradisal bliss that the young spouses were going to enjoy. But it all turned out otherwise. Within a year, a terrible change took place in the husband. His character, hitherto noble and beautiful, was poisoned by the venom of suspicious jealousy, intolerance, and inexhaustible caprices. He became a tyrant and tormentor of his wife and—something no one could have foreseen—resorted to the most inhuman acts, even to beating. Within a year, no one could recognize the woman who so recently had shone and attracted crowds of obedient admirers. At last, unable to endure her hard lot any longer, she made the first mention of divorce. Her husband flew into a fury at the very thought of it. On a first violent impulse, he burst into her room with a knife in his hand and undoubtedly would have stabbed her then and there had he not been seized and held back. In a fit of frenzy and despair, he turned the knife against himself-—and in the most terrible sufferings ended his life. "Besides these two examples, which happened before the eyes of the whole of society, a great many were told of which had occurred in the lower classes, almost all of them having a terrible end. Here an honest, sober man became a drunkard; there a merchant's salesclerk stole from his employer; there a cabby, after several years of honest work, put a knife into a client over a penny. It was impossible that these occurrences, sometimes told with additions, should fail to bring some sort of involuntary terror to the humble inhabitants of Kolomna. No one doubted the presence of unclean powers in this man. It was said that he offered hair-raising terms, such as no unfortunate man ever dared repeat to anyone afterwards; that his money had a burning quality, that it became red-hot by itself and bore some strange signs.. in short, there was a great deal of every sort of absurd talk. And the remarkable thing was that this whole Kolomna populace, this whole world of poor old women, minor officials, minor artists, and, in short, all the small fry we've just named, agreed to suffer and endure the last extremity rather than turn to the dreadful moneylender; old women were even found dead of starvation, preferring the death of their bodies to the destruction of their souls. Those who met him in the street felt an involuntary fear. A passer-by would cautiously back away and glance behind him for a long time afterwards, watching his immensely tall figure disappear in the distance. His appearance alone held so much of the extraordinary that it would have made anyone ascribe a supernatural existence to him. The strong features, more deeply chiseled than ever happens in a man; the hot, bronze complexion; the immense thickness of the eyebrows, the unbearably frightening eyes, even the loose folds of his Asian clothing—all seemed to say that the passions of others all paled before the passion that moved in his body.

  My father, each time he met him, would stand motionless, and each time could not help saying: 'The devil, the very devil!' But I must hasten to acquaint you with my father, who, incidentally, is the real subject of this story"

  "My father was a man remarkable in many respects. He was an artist such as few are, one of those wonders that Russia alone brings forth from her inexhaustible womb, a self-taught artist who found rules and laws in his own soul, without teachers or school, driven only by his thirst for perfection, and following, for reasons perhaps unknown to himself, no path but that which his own soul indicated—one of those natural-born wonders whom contemporaries often abuse with the offensive word 'ignoramus' and whom the castigations of others and their own failures do not cool down but only lend new zeal and strength, so that in their souls they go far beyond the works that earned them the title of 'ignoramus.' With lofty inner instinct, he sensed the presence of a thought in every object; he grasped the true meaning of the term 'historical painting' on his own; grasped why a simple head, a simple portrait by Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, Correggio, could be called a historical painting, and why a huge picture on a historical subject remained a tableau de genre, despite all the artist's claim to historical painting. Both inner sense and personal conviction turned his brush to Christian subjects, the highest and last step of the sublime. He had none of the ambition or irritability so inseparable from the character of many artists. He was of firm character, an honest, direct, even crude man, covered on the outside with a somewhat tough bark, not without a certain pride in his soul, who spoke of people at once sharply and condescendingly. 'Why look at them?' he used to say. 'I don't work for them. I won't take my works to their drawing rooms, they'll be put in a church. Whoever understands me will be grateful—if not, they'll pray to God anyway. There's no point in blaming a man of society for not understanding painting: he understands cards instead, he can appreciate good wine, horses—why should a gentleman know more than that? Otherwise he'll take up one thing or another, turn smart, and then there'll be no getting rid of him! To each his own; let everybody tend to his affairs. As I see it, he's a better man who says outright that he doesn't understand than one who plays the hypocrite, saying he knows something when he doesn't and simply mucking everything up.'

  He worked for little money—that is, just for what he needed to support his family and give him the chance to work. Besides that, he never refused to help others or give a helping hand to a poor artist. He had the simple, pious faith of his ancestors, and that may be why the lofty expression which brilliant talents were never able to achieve appeared of itself on the faces he portrayed. In the end, through the constancy of his labors and his steadfastness on the path he had marked out for himself, he began to gain respect even on the part of those who had abused him as an ignoramus and a homemade talent. He was constantly given commissions by the Church and was never without work. One of his works occupied him greatly. I no longer remember what the subject was, I know only that he had to include the spirit of darkness in the picture. He thought for a long time about what image to give him; he wanted to realize in his face all that burdens and oppresses man. As he re
flected thus, the image of the mysterious moneylender sometimes passed through his head, and he would think involuntarily, 'There's the one I should paint the devil after.' Consider his astonishment, then, when one day, as he was working in his studio, he heard a knock at the door and immediately afterwards the terrible moneylender came in. He could not help feeling some inner tremor, which passed involuntarily through his whole body.

  “‘You are an artist?' he said to my father, without any ceremony.

  “‘An artist,' my father said in perplexity, waiting for what would follow.

  “‘Very well. Paint my portrait. I may die soon. I have no children, but I do not want to die altogether, I want to live on. Can you paint my portrait as if it were perfectly alive?'

  "My father thought, 'What could be better? He's inviting himself to be the devil in my painting.' He gave his word. They arranged the time and the price, and the next day my father seized his palette and brushes and went to him. The high courtyard, the dogs, the iron doors and bars, the arched windows, the coffers covered with strange carpets, and, finally, the extraordinary host himself, who sat motionless before him—all this made a strange impression on him. The windows, as if by design, were blocked up and encumbered below, so that light came only from above. 'Devil take it, how well his face is lighted now!' he said to himself, and he began to paint greedily, as if fearing that the fortunate lighting might somehow disappear.

  'What force!' he repeated to himself. 'If I depict him even half the way he is now, he'll kill all my saints and angels; they'll pale beside him. What diabolical force! He'll simply leap out of my canvas if I'm the least bit faithful to nature. What extraordinary features!' he constantly repeated, his zeal increasing, and he could already see certain features beginning to come over on canvas. But the closer he came to them, the more he felt some heavy, anxious feeling, incomprehensible to himself. However, despite that, he resolved to pursue every inconspicuous trait and expression with literal precision. First of all he set to work on the eyes.

  There was so much power in those eyes that it seemed impossible even to think of conveying them exactly as they were in nature. However, he determined at all costs to search out the least detail and nuance in them, to grasp their mystery . . . But as soon as he began to penetrate and delve into them with his brush, there arose such a strange revulsion in his soul, such inexplicable distress, that he had to lay his brush aside for a time and then begin again. In the end he could no longer endure it, he felt that these eyes had pierced his soul and produced an inconceivable anxiety in it. The next day, and the third, it became still stronger. He felt frightened. He threw down his brush and declared flatly that he was no longer able to paint him. You should have seen the change these words produced in the strange moneylender. He fell at his feet and beseeched him to finish the portrait, saying that his fate and his existence in the world depended on it, that he had already touched his living features with his brush, and that if he conveyed them faithfully, his life by some supernatural force would be retained in the portrait, that through it he would not die entirely, and that he had to be present in the world. My father felt horrified by these words: they seemed so strange and frightening to him that he threw down both brushes and palette and rushed headlong from the room.

  "The thought of it troubled him all day and all night, and in the morning he received the portrait from the moneylender, brought by some woman, the only being in his service, who announced straight away that her master did not want the portrait, would pay nothing for it, and was sending it back. In the evening of the same day, he learned that the moneylender had died and was to be buried by the rites of his own religion. All this seemed inexplicably strange to him. And after that a perceptible change occurred in his character: he felt himself in an uneasy state of anxiety, the cause of which he could not understand, and soon he did something no one would have expected of him. For some time, the works of one of his pupils had begun to attract the attention of a small circle of experts and amateurs. My father had always seen talent in him and was particularly well-disposed toward him for that. Suddenly he became jealous of him. General concern and talk about the young man became unbearable to him. Finally, to crown his vexation, he found out that his pupil had been invited to do the pictures for a rich, newly constructed church. This made him explode. 'No, I won't let that greenhorn triumph!' he said. 'It's too early, brother, for you to be shoving old men into the ditch! I'm still strong, thank God. We'll see who shoves whom.' And this straightforward, honorable man turned to intrigue and scheming, something he had previously always scorned; he succeeded, finally, in having a competition for the pictures announced, and other painters could also enter their works in it. After that he shut himself in his room and ardently took up his brush. It seemed he wanted to put his whole strength, his whole self into it. And, indeed, it turned out to be one of his best works. No one doubted that he would take first place. The paintings were exhibited, and beside it all the others were as night to day. Then suddenly one of the members present, a clergyman if I'm not mistaken, made an observation that struck everyone. 'There is, indeed, much talent in the artist's picture,' he said, 'but there is no holiness in the faces; there is, on the contrary, something demonic in the eyes, as if the painter's hand was guided by an unclean feeling.' Everyone looked and could not but be convinced of the truth of these words. My father rushed up to his picture, as if to verify this offensive observation, and saw with horror that he had given almost all the figures the moneylender's eyes. Their gaze was so demonically destructive that he involuntarily shuddered. The picture was rejected, and he had to hear, to his indescribable vexation, the first place awarded to his pupil. It is impossible to describe the rage in which he returned home. He almost gave my mother a beating, chased the children away, broke all his brushes and his easel, snatched the portrait of the moneylender from the wall, asked for a knife, and ordered a fire made in the fireplace, intending to cut it to pieces and burn it. At that point he was found by a friend who came into the room, himself also a painter, a happy fellow, always pleased with himself, not carried away by any far-reaching desires, who worked happily at whatever came along and was even happier to get down to dining and carousing.

  “‘What are you doing? What are you going to burn?' he said, and went up to the portrait.

  'Good heavens, it's one of your best works. It's that moneylender who died recently; but it's a most perfect thing. You simply got him, not between the eyes but right in them. No eyes have ever stared the way you've made them stare.'

  "'And now I'll see how they stare in the fire,' said my father, making a move to hurl it into the fireplace.

  "'Stop, for God's sake!' said the friend, holding him back. 'Better give it to me, if you find it such an eyesore.'

  "My father resisted at first, but finally consented, and the happy fellow, extremely pleased with his acquisition, took the portrait home.

  "After he left, my father suddenly felt himself more at ease. Just as if, along with the portrait, a burden had fallen from his soul. He was amazed himself at his wicked feeling, his envy, and the obvious change in his character. Having considered his behavior, he was saddened at heart and said, not without inner grief:

  “‘No, it is God punishing me. My painting deserved to suffer disgrace. It was intended to destroy my brother. The demonic feeling of envy guided my brush, and demonic feeling was bound to be reflected in it.'

  "He immediately went to look for his former pupil, embraced him warmly, asked his forgiveness, and tried his best to smooth over his guilt before him. His work again went on as serenely as before; but pensiveness now showed more often on his face. He prayed more, was more often taciturn, and did not speak so sharply about people; the external roughness of his character somehow softened. Soon one circumstance shook him still more. He had not seen the friend who had begged the portrait from him for a long time. He was just about to go and see him when the man suddenly walked into his room unexpectedly. After a few words and q
uestions on both sides, he said: “Well, brother, you weren't wrong to want to burn the portrait. Devil take it, there's something strange in it. . I don't believe in witches, but like it or not, there's some unclean power sitting in it. . .'

  “‘Meaning what?' said my father.

  “Meaning that once I hung it in my room, I felt such anguish as if I wanted to put a knife in somebody. Never in my whole life have I known what insomnia is, and now I had not only insomnia but such dreams. . I myself can't tell whether they were dreams or something else—as if some evil spirit was strangling me—and the accursed old man kept appearing in them. In short, I can't tell you what a state I was in. Nothing like it has ever happened to me. I wandered about like a lunatic all those days. I kept feeling some kind of fear, expecting something unpleasant. I felt I couldn't say a cheerful and sincere word to anybody: just as if some sort of spy was sitting next to me. And it was only when I gave the portrait to my nephew, who asked for it himself, that I suddenly felt as if a weight had fallen from my shoulders: I suddenly felt cheerful, as you see me now. Well, brother, you cooked up quite a devil!”

  "My father listened to the story all the while with undivided attention, and finally said: “‘And the portrait is now with your nephew?'

  "'My nephew, hah! He couldn't stand it,' the cheerful fellow said. 'The moneylender's very soul must have transmigrated into it: he jumps out of the frame, walks around the room; and what my nephew tells, the mind simply can't grasp. I'd have taken him for a madman if I hadn't experienced some of it myself. He, too, sold it to some art collector, but that one couldn't bear it either and also unloaded it on somebody.'