Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852)
Born in the Ukraine, Gogol was in many respects the founder of modern Russian literature. His stories of rural life collected under the title Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka were enthusiastically received, and, because of their freshness and originality, exerted a profound and lasting influence. To Gogol is chiefly due the credit for inaugurating the modern Russian novel and short story.
The present version of St. John`s Eve is reprinted from Taras Bulha, and Other Tales, by permission of J. M. Dent and Sons, publishers.
St. John`s Eve
(From Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka)
Thoma Grigorovitch had one very strange eccentricity: to the day of his death he never liked to tell the same thing twice. There were times when, if you asked him to relate a thing afresh, he would interpolate new matter, or alter it so that it was impossible to recognize it. Once upon a time, one of those gentlemen who like every sort of frippery, and issue mean little volumes, no thicker than an ABC book, every month, or even every week, wormed this same story out of Thoma Grigorovitch, and the latter completely forgot about it. But that same young gentleman, in the pea-green caftan, came from Poltava, bringing with him a little book, and, opening it in the middle, showed it to us.
Thoma Grigorovitch was on the point of setting his spectacles astride of his nose, but recollected that he had forgotten to wind thread about them and stick them together with wax, so he passed it over to me. As I understand something about reading and writing, and do not wear spectacles, I undertook to read it. I had not turned two leaves when all at once he caught me by the hand and stopped me. “Stop! tell me first what you are reading.”
I confess that I was a trifle stunned by such a question.
“What! what am I reading, Thoma Grigorovitch? Why, your own words.”
“Who told you that they were my words?”
“Why, what more would you have? Here it is printed: `Related by such and such a sacristan.` ”
“Spit on the head of the man who printed that! he lies, the dog of a Moscow peddler! Did I say that?’ `Twas just the same as though one hadn`t his wits about him!` Listen, I`ll tell the tale to you on the spot.” We moved up to the table, and he began.
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