Dead Souls

by Nikolai Gogol

Certainly Dead Souls embodies what the critic Mikhail Bakhtin called “potential,” the capacity for a work of art to change its meaning over time, in fruitful dialogue with its readers. And this is where the phrase “dead souls” acquires a new, radiant significance: the empty space provided by the dead, unknowable peasants inspires creative imaginative play even in the soulless Chichikov, who in Chapter 7, when imagining the lives and deaths of the serfs he has bought, becomes a poet and a teller of tales, if only for a moment. Gogol’s reader is invited to join him—and many do. To

fell into that marvelous slumber which is known only to those fortunate beings who are bothered neither by hemorrhoids, nor fleas, nor overdeveloped mental faculties.

and even though, on occasion, pins and needles—ooh, ever so piercing!—would be poking up through some pleasant word of hers.

One can say positively that there’s never been anything like it in all the world!”

Strange people, these Messieurs the bureaucrats—and, with them, all the other ranks as well. For they knew very well that Nozdrev was a liar, that one couldn’t believe him—not in a single word he uttered, not in the least trifle—and yet, just the same, they had recourse to him. There, go and cope with man! Man does not believe in God, but he does believe that if the bridge of his nose itches he is inevitably slated to die soon; he will pass over the creation of a poet, a creation as clear as the day, all permeated with harmony and the lofty wisdom of simplicity, but will eagerly pounce upon a work wherein some daring fellow tangles everything up, weaves a lot of nonsense, distorts nature and turns it inside out, and this will prove to his liking, and he will set up a shout: “Here it is, here is a genuine knowledge of the secrets of the heart!” All his life he doesn’t value doctors at more than a bent pin, but in the upshot turns to some old conjure woman who heals through whispered spells and gobbets of spit, or better still, he will devise for himself some decoction or other out of goodness knows what rubbish which, God knows why, he will consider the sovereign cure for what ails him.

But the present generation laughs and, self-reliantry, proudly, launches a new succession of delusions, over which its descendants will laugh in their turn, even as the present generation is laughing now.