The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol (66 page)

2.
A Tartar word referring, in different regions, to different sorts of jackets—here, probably a simple caftan trimmed with leather on the hem, cuffs, and front.

3.
Moscow printers and publishers of the early nineteenth century.

4.
In Russian, the godfather and godmother of the same person call each other
kum
and
kuma
, as do all others thus related through the same baptism.

5.
A
zertsalo
was a small three-faced glass pyramid bearing an eagle and certain edicts of the emperor Peter the Great (1682–1725) that stood on the desk in every government office.

6.
A special dorsal section of flesh running the entire length of a salmon or sturgeon, removed in one piece and either salted or smoked; considered a great delicacy in Russia.

7.
The fourth-century saints Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, and John Chrysostom, sometimes venerated together by the Orthodox Church.

8.
St.
Philip’s Day marks the beginning of the six-week Advent fast (see note 7 to “Ivan Fyodorovich Shponka and His Aunt”).

9.
In chapter I his last name is Pupopuz, meaning something like “bellybutton.” Golopuz means “bare belly.”

10.
See note 14 to “Old World Landowners.”

PETERSBURG TALES

Nevsky Prospect

1.
The Neva River divides into three main branches as it flows into the Gulf of Finland, marking out the three main areas of the city of St.
Petersburg: on the left bank of the Neva is the city center; between the Neva and the Little Neva is Vasilievsky Island; and between the Little Neva and the Nevka is the Petersburg side.
The Vyborg side, Peski (“the Sands”) and the Moscow gate, neighborhoods well within the limits of present-day Petersburg, were once quite remote from each other.

2.
Ganymede, the son of King Tros, after whom the city of Troy was named, was the most beautiful of young men and was therefore chosen by the gods to be Zeus’s cupbearer.

3.
An extremely tall, needle-shaped spire topped by a figure of a ship on the Admiralty building, one of the landmarks of Petersburg.

4.
The reference is to the image of the Madonna in the fresco
The Adoration of the Magi
, in the chapel of Santa Maria dei Bianchi in Città della Pieve, painted by the Italian master Pietro Vannucci, called Il Perugino (1446–1523).

5.
The star figured on the decoration of a number of Russian military and civil orders.

6.
The cemetery in Okhta, a suburb of Petersburg on a small tributary of the Neva.

7.
An amusingly ironic assortment of names: F.
V.
Bulgarin (1789–1859) and N.
I.
Grech (1787–1867), journalists and minor writers of much influence in their time, were editors of the reactionary and semiofficial magazine
The Northern Bee
, and at least one of them (Bulgarin) was also a police informer.
They were archenemies of Russia’s greatest poet, Alexander Pushkin (1799–1837), who enjoyed mocking them in epigrams.
A.
A.
Orlov (1791–1840) was the author of primitive, moralistic novels for a popular audience, derided by Bulgarin and Grech, though, as Pushkin pointed out in an article, Bulgarin’s novels differed little from Orlov’s.

8.
The reference is to vaudevilles about simple folk popular in the 1830s, featuring a character named Filatka.

9.
Dmitri Donskoy
is a historical tragedy by the mediocre poet Nestor Kukolnik (1809–68), a great success in its day.
Woe from Wit
, a comedy in verse by Alexander Griboedov (1795–1829), stands as the first real masterpiece of the Russian theater.

10.
Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805), poet, playwright, historian, and literary theorist, is one of the greatest figures of German literature.
The fantastic tales of E.T.A.
Hoffmann (1776–1822) are known the world over.

11.
In Russian, the German word
Junker
, meaning “young lord,” refers to a lower officer’s rank open only to the nobility (and thus, of course, not to the tinsmith Schiller).

12.
A junior clerk was expected to call at his superior’s home to wish him good health on his name day and feast days, and to leave his card as evidence of having done so.

13.
Marie-Joseph, Marquis de Lafayette (1757–1834), French general and statesman, took the side of the Colonies in the American war of independence, and was active as a liberal royalist in the French revolutions of 1789 and 1830.

The Diary of a Madman

1.
See note 7 to “Nevsky Prospect.”

2.
The lines are in fact by the minor poet and playwright N.
P.
Nikolev (1758–1815).

3.
Ruch was a prominent Moscow tailor of the time.

4.
See note 8 to “Nevsky Prospect.”

5.
The German title
Kammerjunker
(“gentleman of the bedchamber”) was adopted by the Russian imperial court.

6.
The reference is to the problem of royal succession in Spain following the death of Ferdinand VII in 1833.
His three-year-old daughter, Isabella II, was put on the throne and ruled for thirty-five years, despite the efforts of the king’s brother, Don Carlos, to depose her.

7.
Under the stern and very Catholic Philip II (1527–98), the Inquisition reached its height in Spain.
The Capuchins were Franciscan friars of the new rule established in 1528.

8.
Jules-Armand, Prince de Polignac (1780–1847), French politican, was minister of foreign affairs under Charles X (1757–1836).

The Nose

1.
In the first version of the story, the date was April 25th.
The date Gogol finally chose, March 25th, is that of the feast of the Annunciation, one of the major feasts in the Christian calendar.
This fact has seemed to support commentators seeking a specifically religious and even apocalyptical significance in “The Nose.”

2.
Bribery and other administrative abuses evidently worked more quickly in the Caucasus than in the capital or the Russian provinces.

3.
See note 7 to “Nevsky Prospect.”

4.
The denominations of Russian paper currency were distinguished by color: a blue banknote had a value of five roubles, a red of ten roubles.

5.
Gogol’s slip, perpetuated in all Russian editions; her name is, of course, Palageya.

6.
A fashionable shop in Petersburg, located on the corner of Nevsky Prospect and Bolshaya Morskaya Street.

7.
Grand admiral and later grand vizier of the Ottoman empire under the sultan Mahmud II (1785–1839), Khozrev-Mirza came to Petersburg in August 1829 at the head of a special embassy, following the murder in Teheran of the Russian ambassador, the poet Alexander Griboedov (see note 9 to “Nevsky Prospect”).
During his stay, he lived in the Tavrichesky Palace.

The Carriage

1.
Marshal of the nobility was the highest elective office in a province before the reforms of the 1860s.
Governors and administrators were appointed by the tsar.

2.
That is, in the war against Napoleon.

The Portrait

1.
See note 7 to “The Nose.”

2.
A character from the popular story “Bova Korolevich,” often portrayed in Russian folk prints, or
lubok
, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

3.
That is, from the outskirts of the city (see note 6 to “Nevsky Prospect”).

4.
Yeruslan Lazarevich is a Russian version of the Rustem of Persian tales; he and the other folk figures listed here were also popular images in
lubok.

5.
The streets on Vasilievsky Island (see note 1 to “Nevsky Prospect”), called “lines,” were laid out in a grid and numbered.

6.
Raphael Sanzio (1483–1520), who worked in Perugia, Florence, and Rome, was commonly considered the greatest of all painters by Russians of Gogol’s time; Guido Reni (1575–1642) was known for the elegance of his brushwork, the correctness of his drawing, and the brilliance of his colors; Titian (1477–1576) was perhaps the greatest of the Venetian masters.
For Russians, the Flemish school was represented by Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) and Antoine (or Sir Anthony) van Dyck (1599–1641), who collaborated with Rubens for some time and later became court painter for Charles I of England.

7.
Giorgio Vasari (1511–74), painter and architect, a pupil of Michelangelo, is best known for his
Lives
of the Italian artists of the Renaissance.
The portrait in question is Leonardo’s
Mona Lisa.

8.
See note 1 to “Nevsky Prospect.” Kolomna was a suburb to the west of Petersburg.

9.
Mikhail Illarionovich Golenishchev-Kutuzov, prince of Smolensk (1745–1813), Russian field marshal, led campaigns in Poland, Turkey, and the Crimea, was defeated by Napoleon at Austerlitz, and successfully commanded the Russian army during Napoleon’s disastrous Russian expedition of 1812.

10.
A hero of the narrative poem
Twelve Sleeping Maidens
, by V.
A.
Zhukovsky (1783–1852), Gromoboy sold his soul to the devil.

11.
Either David Teniers the Elder (1582–1649), or his son, David Teniers the Younger (1610–90), Flemish painters known for their realistic scenes of popular life, interiors, and so on.

12.
The lady uses the French form of the name of the Italian painter Antonio Allegri da Correggio (1494–1534), known for his audacious use of aerial perspective and the sensuality of his mythological scenes.

13.
The typical Byronic pose is a full profile with an open-collared shirt.
Corinne is the heroine of a novel of the same name by the French writer Mme.
de Staël (1766–1817); Ondine is the heroine of a poem of the same name by V.
A.
Zhukovsky, based on the tale by the German Romantic writer Friedrich de La Motte-Fouqué (1777–1843); Aspasia (fifth century
B.C.
), an Athenian courtesan famous for her beauty and intelligence, belonged to Socrates’ circle and was the lover of the general and statesman Pericles.

14.
The basilisk is a legendary monster, hatched by a toad from a cock’s egg, whose look is said to kill.

15.
The reference is to the poem “The Demon” (1824), by Alexander Pushkin (see note 7 to “Nevsky Prospect”).

16.
The words “immersed in their zephyrs and cupids” are paraphrased from a line about a ruined landowner and lover of ballet in Griboedov’s
Woe from Wit
(see note 9 to “Nevsky Prospect”); the name of Gaius Maecenas (c.
70–8
B.C.
), Roman statesman and important patron of literature, has become proverbial.

17.
A shopping place that still exists in Petersburg.

18.
A special design of oil lamp with a double draft and a reservoir higher than the wick, named for its French inventor.

19.
See note 4 to “The Night Before Christmas.”

20.
The Senate in Petersburg acted as a civil court as well as a legislative body.

21.
The noble and virtuous hero of
The History of Sir Charles Grandison
(1753–54), by Samuel Richardson (1689–1761).

The Overcoat

1.
See note 20 to “The Portrait.”

2.
That is, the church calendar, which lists saints’ days and feast days, among other things; a child would be named for the saint (or one of the saints) on whose day it was born.

3.
The famous equestrian statue of Peter the Great on the Senate square in Petersburg, by French sculptor Étienne-Maurice Falconet (1716–91).

4.
That is, one whose neglect of Orthodox feast days made her comparable to an unbeliever and even a sober Lutheran.

ABOUT THE
TRANSLATORS

R
ICHARD
P
EVEAR
has published translations of Alain, Yves Bonnefoy, Alberto Savinio, Pavel Florensky, and Henri Volohonsky, as well as two books of poetry.
He has received fellowships or grants for translation from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the French Ministry of Culture.

L
ARISSA
V
OLOKHONSKY
was born in Leningrad.
She has translated works by the prominent Orthodox theologians Alexander Schmemann and John Meyendorff into Russian.
Together, Pevear and Volokhonsky have translated
Dead Souls
by Nikolai Gogol and
The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, Notes from Underground
, and
Demons
by Fyodor Dostoevsky.
They were awarded the PEN Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize for their version of
The Brothers Karamazov
, and, more recently,
Demons
was one of three nominees for the same prize.
They are married and live in France.