And the Earth Will Sit on the Moon

The following are my notes on And the Earth Will Sit on the Moon, by Nikolai Gogol. These notes are subject to change in the future.

General Background Information

These works were written after the ousting of Napoleon and during the effort to westernize Russia by Peter the Great. Gogol tried many careers but ended as a writer. His works are praised by Pushkin, and he dies before he completes his epic Dead Souls where he attempts to create a structure and spiritual order that he felt the world lacked. Gogol lived as an itinerant, with little connection to any people or place, and at times questioned his own spiritual virtue, viewing himself like St. Petersburg, an impostor.

Plot Summary

Translator’s Introduction

Gogol grew up in rural Ukraine and then moved to St. Petersburg to pursue glory and pride. He found the governmental work horrible and quickly washed out, and was also completely dissatisfied with St. Petersburg as a city. He expressed these thoughts in letters written to his mother, with a throughline being that he felt the city had no spiritual power or identity.

Notes on Ranks

Ranks determined much about how one should act and be treated during Nicholas I’s reign. These ranks were instituted by Peter the Great in an effort to provide scope for social mobility. Only ranks above collegiate assessor provide hereditary nobility, and these ranks existed in civil service, court and the military.

The Nose

I

We are introduced to Ivan Yakovlevich and his wife Praskovya Osipovna. Gogol informs us there is no trace of Ivan’s last name, only his patronymic. He requests bread and onion from his wife, even though he wants bread, onion and coffee as he knows she won’t tolerate him requesting more.

As he’s slicing bread the nose of the collegiate assessor Kovalyov falls out. His wife chastises him heavily fearing they will be punished and that it is somehow his fault that the nose came out of the bread, implying he is a drunkard who pulled the nose off Kovalyov while he was shaving him. We learn that Ivan is a drunkard, not concerned with his appearance or perception from the public, and is somewhat scornful towards his clients.

He resolves to depart into the city to get rid of the nose but is thwarted by various social factors. Eventually he drops the nose off of a bridge and feels much better. He is questioned by someone of a high rank about what he was doing standing on the bridge, but we never learn the end of that questioning.

II

We are introduced to Kovalyov waking up to his nose disappearing. He is thoroughly dismayed and immediately thinks about how he won’t be able to keep up his political relationships or engage in the behavior appropriate to someone of his station if he does not have a nose. We learn he is actually not an academically tested Collegiate Assessor but rather was fast tracked due to military service in the Caucasus. This also leads him to use the title of Major rather than Collegiate Assessor as it carries more cachet.

He leaves his house wrapped up in a scarf and stops by in a patisserie to check if his nose is truly gone, which he confirms in the mirror. Later when walking around he sees someone who he identifies as his nose having gone into the cathedral of our Lady Kazan, a cathedral which all nobility must attend on a certain day. He tries to confront his nose in this cathedral but his nose rebuffs him and claims he has no idea who he is. He sees a young lady and begins to try to court her but realizes he has no nose and cries. Turning around to confront his nose he notices he has gone. He then resolves to go to the papers to print an ad about his nose so that he may be apprehended. The newspaper clerk refuses his request as he believes it to be a practical joke. Upon seeing his lack of a nose he is still not convinced to print the ad.

He decides to visit the Superintendent, who is in very high demand and esteem in this society. He comes after lunch and brings no gifts, which leaves the Superintendent very displeased with the visit. The Superintendent effectively tells him it’s his problem and likely his fault as he is only a Major, so he doesn’t care to start an investigation. Kovalyov is deeply offended, only because his rank has been insulted, and leaves the Superintendent’s place immediately.

He then returns home and laments his position. He suspects Lady Podtochina has found a peasant to cast a spell on him, as he has been rejecting her offers to marry her daughter. Suddenly an officer arrives at his door and gives him his nose, who he has apprehended for pretending to be a State Counsellor. Kovalyov is temporarily giddy, but he finds he cannot place his nose back on his face. He calls the doctor from his building but the doctor assures him his nose cannot be reattached. The story of the Major whose nose travels freely without him becomes a public spectacle for St. Petersburg.

III

Kovalyov wakes up one day and his nose has returned. He continues on and lives his life all the same, perhaps even more ostentatiously. Gogol ponders the improbability of this story and the actions of Kovalyov. He says there is something wrong with his actions, and that there is something to this story, but he can’t point out exactly what it is.

Diary of a Madman

We are introduced to Aksenty Ivanovich, a Titular Councilor. He works in a central department as a clerk, he sharpens quills and occasionally copies documents but is not trusted by his superiors and is largely scorned.

On his way home he sees the daughter of the Director General and falls in love with her immediately. He imagines that her dog Madgie is speaking with other dogs about letters they send each other.

He resolves to find the letters and steals some scraps from the kennel of the dog he saw Madgie with.

He believes that the director general has a special fondness for him and that his daughter also likes him. He holds the director general in very high regard. He learns that his daughter actually likes a Groom of the Chamber and finds him quite disgusting from reading the letters. He laments that his station is all that is holding him back and all good things go to those of higher noble station. He wonders why he couldn’t be of that station, not seeing any reason why not.

Learning about the controversy in Spain where Isabela II is set to take the throne he is extremely put off. This leads to him resolving that he is actually the king of Spain, Ferdinand III. His servant Mavra is quite frightened when he declares this to her, stops working and makes some makeshift robes, but he perceives this as her not knowing how to interact with a king.

He is brought to a madhouse after he stops showing up to work and starts acting belligerently. He believes this madhouse is part of his succession ritual and that the floggings he receives are some knightly ritual.

The last entry in his diary is pleading with the world, his captors and his mother to free him from his torment which he finds unbearable.

The Overcoat

We are introduced to Akacky Akackyevich. He is a clerk at an unnamed department, purposefully unnamed as Gogol doesn’t want to offend anyone. His name is given to him as his mother could not find a better name and so she defaulted to his father’s name, and he is stated to be effectively guaranteed to live the life he lives.

He is a permanent titular counselor, he is not respected by anyone in his department and people assume he has just always been there. There is a despotic manner in which his superiors interact with him and his colleagues chide and mock him viciously. One of his colleagues hears him say “leave me be, why are you offending me,” and is shaken to his core. He hears “I am your brother.” Gogol laments about the cruelty of the civilized man that rests underneath the facade of nobility.

Akacky is in love with his work. He dedicates a great amount of effort to it and finds joy only in copying documents. He is not rewarded at all for these efforts and instead is ridiculed. He does not pay attention to anything going on other than his work and is poured over thoroughly by trash and debris in his way to work as a result of this. By all means he is a very content man, but this state of contentedness is disrupted by his overcoat failing him in the winter.

He wanted to get it patched but his tailor says it is simply too far gone. He is distraught over the purchase of a new overcoat as the funds have not been allotted.

He resolves to save and sacrifice for the overcoat. This gives him a certain zeal and energy as he is now possessed by a goal. It even begins to distract him from his work. The day that he can purchase the overcoat arrives earlier than he expects it to as he receives a larger bonus than he expected.

Eventually the overcoat is prepared by Petrovich, a very nice overcoat with some compromises in material. Akacky is in love with it. He takes it to work and he is promptly badgered about it by his colleagues. They try to get him to a host a party, but a clerk head volunteers to do it.

He goes home, quite pleased with his coat, and then heads out for the party. There he is amused and contented by the displays in the fancy part of the city that the clerk head lives in. He arrives at the party and he is immediately surrounded. People compliment his coat and force him to stay past his bed time to drink champagne and eat a fancy meal.

He slips out, finding his overcoat on the ground, and notices far more strongly the positive aspects of the rich streets and the desolation and poverty nearer to where he lives. On his way home is robbed of his coat. The policeman on guard does not help him and instructs him to see the Superintendent. He sees the Superintendent after considerable effort and is ignored and questioned why he was out so late.

He is instructed to find a significant person, who can help along his case. He picks out a general who so thoroughly considered with keeping his rank and attitude berates Akacky thoroughly. Akacky catches a cold on the way home and dies shortly after, not much attention is paid to him by the author during his death. No one really cares or notices that he has died, and he is replaced immediately at work.

Akacky’s ghost haunts St. Petersburg till he finds this significant person again. He demands his overcoat and shocks this significant person into being slightly less domineering and brutal with people of a lower rank than him.

Old-World Land Owners

Gogol speaks about a couple who lives an idyllic bucolic life in Little Russia (Ukraine). He describes with great detail the pleasant and contented nature of their life and how it tempts one stuck in modern life.

Some significant thieving and mismanagement occurs on their estate, but as the Earth is bountiful they barely notice it. They are totally committed to each other and not interested in expanding their wealth. They live to host their guests, who they treat with great kindness and generosity.

One day Pulkerhia, the wife, notices her cat has disappeared. It has been whisked away by wild cats in the garden, and has lost its civility. She finds her cat and tempts it back, but after feeding it it runs away again.

She takes this to mean her death is upon her and stops eating. Her husband attempts to joke about the situation but begins to weep. She scolds him for this. Soon she passes away, her husband is left in shock.

Afanasy experiences deep inconsolable grief. It does not wane with time. He attempts suicide twice and remarries once. The estate falls to ruin. Our narrator visits and can feel Pulkheria’s absence everywhere. During this visit, 5 years later, Afanasy can not even utter Pulkheria’s name without weeping.

He hears a voice in the garden calling his name when no one is there. He takes this to be Pulkheria. Just like her, he withers away. His estate is ravaged, and taken over by some distant relative, it is then so mismanaged that it is effectively empty land.

The Carriage

A shabby town is reinvigorated by the military stopping their carriages in its square. Of the military men, one is especially flamboyant and ostentatious, the Brigadier General. This general is in town discussing his need for a new carriage when Chertokusky, a man in the town invites him over for lunch to see this carriage.

They come over for dinner the night before and eat Chertokusky out of house and home, everyone gets drunk and the evening proceeds till 3 in the morning. Too drunk to say anything he gets home and sleeps without telling his wife about the lunch. The next morning when the general and his men come for the lunch and inspection he hides in the carriage, thinking it the place they are least likely to see him.

The general and his men are outraged that Chertokusky has not made good on his promise to host them, and decide to go see the carriage anyway. They ridicule it, and then as a last attempt at redeeming the carriage they open it and find Chertokusky inside.

Final Thoughts

These stories are mostly concerned with critiquing the customs of nobility that were brought along by Peter the Great’s system which was intended to encourage social mobility. But, within these stories there are frequent lines that are incisive towards how these systems can rid us of our ability to be grounded in reality, which certainly applies outside of that immediate historical context.