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    The Night of Christmas Eve
    The Night of Christmas Eve
    The Night of Christmas Eve
    Ebook69 pages1 hour

    The Night of Christmas Eve

    By Nikolai Gogol

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    About this ebook

    This early work by Nikolai Gogol was originally published in 1832 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'The Night of Christmas Eve' is a short story about a young man trying to win the affections of a beautiful girl by promising to fetch her the slippers of the Tsaritsa. Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol was born in Sorochintsi, Ukraine in 1809. In 1831, Gogol brought out the first volume of his Ukrainian stories, 'Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka'. It met with immediate success, and he followed it a year later with a second volume. 'The Nose' is regarded as a masterwork of comic short fiction, and 'The Overcoat' is now seen as one of the greatest short stories ever written; some years later, Dostoyevsky famously stated "We all come out from Gogol's 'Overcoat'." He is seen by many contemporary critics as one of the greatest short story writers who has ever lived, and the Father of Russia's Golden Age of Realism.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRead Books Ltd.
    Release dateSep 12, 2016
    ISBN9781473359796
    The Night of Christmas Eve
    Author

    Nikolai Gogol

    Nikolai Gogol was a Russian novelist and playwright born in what is now considered part of the modern Ukraine. By the time he was 15, Gogol worked as an amateur writer for both Russian and Ukrainian scripts, and then turned his attention and talent to prose. His short-story collections were immediately successful and his first novel, The Government Inspector, was well-received. Gogol went on to publish numerous acclaimed works, including Dead Souls, The Portrait, Marriage, and a revision of Taras Bulba. He died in 1852 while working on the second part of Dead Souls.

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      Book preview

      The Night of Christmas Eve - Nikolai Gogol

      The Night of

      Christmas Eve

      By

      Nikolai Gogol

      Copyright © 2013 Read Books Ltd.

      This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any way without the express permission of the publisher in writing

      British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

      NIKOLAI GOGOL

      Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol was born in Sorochintsi, Ukraine in 1809. He attended the Poltava boarding school, and then the Nehzin high school, where he wrote for the school’s literary journal and acted in theatrical productions. In 1828, after leaving school, Gogol moved to St. Petersburg with the ambition of becoming a professional author. At his own expense, he published a long Romantic poem. It was universally derided, and Gogol bought and destroyed all the copies, swearing never to write poetry again.

      In 1831, Gogol brought out the first volume of his Ukrainian stories, Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka. It met with immediate success, and he followed it a year later with a second volume. Around this time, Gogol met the great Russian poet Aleksandr Pushkin, with whom he developed a close friendship. Over the next decade or so, he worked with great industry, producing a great amount of short stories. Of these, ‘The Nose’ is regarded as a masterwork of comic short fiction, and ‘The Overcoat’ is now seen as one of the greatest short stories ever written; some years later, Dostoyevsky famously stated We all come out from Gogol's 'Overcoat'. He also published Dead Souls (1842), a satirisation of serfdom, seen by many critics as the first ‘modern’ Russian novel and his greatest longer work.

      Gogol spent time living abroad in later life, settling in Rome and developing a passion for opera. As he got older, criticism of his work began to drain him, and he turned to religion, making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1848. Upon his return to Russia, under the encouragement of the fanatical priest, Father Konstantinovskii, Gogol subjected himself to a fatal course of fasting. He died in Moscow in 1852, aged 42. He is seen by many contemporary critics as one of the greatest short story writers who has ever lived, and the Father of Russia’s Golden Age of Realism.

      Contents

      NIKOLAI GOGOL

      THE NIGHT OF CHRISTMAS EVE

      (II)

      THE NIGHT OF CHRISTMAS EVE

      A LEGEND OF LITTLE RUSSIA

      THE last day before Christmas had just closed. A bright winter night had come on, stars had appeared, and the moon rose majestically in the heavens to shine upon good men and the whole of the world, so that they might gaily sing carols and hymns in praise of the nativity of Christ. The frost had grown more severe than during the day; but, to make up for this, everything had become so still that the crisping of the snow under-foot might be heard nearly half a verst round. As yet there was not a single group of young peasants to be seen under the windows of the cottages; the moon alone peeped stealthily in at them, as if inviting the maidens, who were decking themselves, to make haste and have a run on the crisp snow. Suddenly, out of the chimney of one of the cottages, volumes of smoke ascended in clouds towards the heavens, and in the midst of those clouds rose, on a besom, a witch.

      If at that time the magistrate of Sorochinsk¹ had happened to pass in his carriage, drawn by three horses, his head covered by a lancer cap with sheepskin trimming, and wrapped in his great cloak, covered with blue cloth and lined with black sheepskin, and with his tightly plaited lash, which he uses for making the driver drive faster—if this worthy gentleman had happened to pass at that time, no doubt he would have seen the witch, because there is no witch who could glide away without his seeing her. He knows to a certainty how many sucking pigs each swine brings forth in each cottage, how much linen lies in each box, and what each one has pawned in the brandy-shop out of his clothes or his household furniture. But the magistrate of Sorochinsk happened not to pass; and then, what has he to do with those out of his jurisdiction? he has his own circuit. And the witch by this time had risen so high that she only looked like a little dark spot up above; but wherever that spot went, one star after another disappeared from heaven. In a short time the witch had got a whole sleeveful of them. Some three or four only remained shining. On a sudden, from the opposite side, appeared another spot, which went on growing, spreading, and soon became no longer a spot. A short-sighted man, had he put, not only spectacles, but even the wheels of a britzka on his nose, would never have been able to make out what it was. In front, it was just like a German;¹ a narrow snout, incessantly turning on every side, and smelling about, ended like those of our pigs, in a small, round, flattened end; its legs were so thin, that had the village elder got no better, he would have broken them to pieces in the first squatting-dance. But, as if to make amends for these deficiencies, it might have been taken, viewed from behind, for the provincial advocate, so much was its long pointed tail like the skirt of our dress-coats. And yet, a look at the goat’s beard under its snout, at the small horns sticking out of its head, and at the whole of its figure, which was no whiter than that of a chimney-sweep, would have sufficed to make anyone guess that

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