Dead Souls

by Nikolai Gogol

Happy is the wayfarer who, after a long, tedious journey with its cold spells, slush, mire, stage-post superintendents grumbling from lack of sleep, the jingle-jangling of bells, carriage repairs, heated arguments, coachmen, blacksmiths, and all sorts of scoundrels whom one meets on the road, beholds at last a familiar roof and the little lights that seem to be rushing forward to meet him. And he will see before him the familiar rooms, the joyous shouts of his people running out to meet him, the noise and running of children, and soothing, low-voiced converse constantly interrupted by flaming kisses which have the power to eradicate from memory all that had been disagreeable. Happy is the family man that hath such a retreat—but woe to the bachelor! Happy is the writer, who, after passing by characters that are tedious, repulsive, overwhelming in their sad actuality, chooses the proximity of characters that manifest the high dignity of man; happy the writer who has picked out only the few exceptions from the great slough of everyday figures revolving about him; the writer who has not changed even once the lofty strain of his lyre, has never descended from his aerie to his poor, insignificant brethren, and who, without touching the common earth, has devoted himself wholly to his images and forms, far removed from that earth and magnified to heroic size. Doubly to be envied is his resplendent lot: he dwells amid these images and forms as if in the midst of his own family; and...