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Being Buried Alive; or, Gogol in 1973
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Andrei Bitov Being Buried Alive; or, Gogol in 1973 (From the cycle Memoirs of Great Writers) • VII IT WAS THE 31st of December; the train was to arrive at 11 :20; forty minutes to make it to the holiday table. An hour before arrival the intercom came on. Shulzhenko sang, then someone else. Then one number came after another with no announcements in between, and all you could do was guess or not guess what they were going to sing or play. The next number was a reading. In the voice of a "people's artist" who had substituted extortion of responses for any sort of artistry, employing the mannerisms of Grandpa Shchukar: winking and leaving time for audience reactions, the reader began to read a "classic." You knew right away that it was a classic from the way the artist stressed precisely the unimportant words: for instance, nouns were more important for him than verbs; he kept emphasizing the wrong words, but with the kind of confidence that only great fame, great name power, could give those superfluous words. But I just couldn't guess what that great name was, and this somewhat wounded my professional pride. I was thoroughly annoyed that I couldn't guess the text right away, but only through the prompting of the proper nouns, like "Kiev," "Khoma."f Even a mental exclamation directed at the performer-"I never knew how unrecognizable you could make a text!"-failed to mitigate this irritation of my vanity. I turned away and stopped listening. There was nothing in the nighttime window-the reflection showed the same train car, the same me. As always, the sixth and last hour of the trip was particularly tedious. People were getting tired as we approached the station. They got their things together too soon, put their coats on too soon, crowded into the aisle too soon....°A folksy character in a novel by Mikhail Sholokhov. tKhoma Brut is the hero of Gogol's "Vii," which is set in and around Kiev. 14 Being Buried Alive; or, Gogo! in 1973 "And suddenly it became quiet in the church; one could hear wolves howling in the distance, and soon heavy footsteps resounded through the church. With a sidelong glance, he saw ... "It's strange after all, I thought, a train on New Year's Eve, Vii. ... Distilled weirdness. The train started to rock and jump on the switches more violently , choosing its own personal branch, its own private dead end in the delta of the railway. And the reader continued, liquidating the horror with his cheery voice, emphasizing the inexhaustible folk imagination, its life-affirming force.... How did he manage it?this really was a kind of artistry. At any rate, he was worthy of his title, he corresponded to it. "With horror Khoma noticed that his face was made of iron,'" the reader joyfully exclaimed, and then there was a click on the loudspeaker and, seeming so natural this time, a railroad voice announced : "The train is arriving at hero-city Leningrad." The platform. A little flowerbed-grave at the end of the track. Eleven-twenty-five on the station clock. A monument with an outflung arm: "There he is!" And his face was made of iron. EXTERNAL INSPECTION OF A BOOK Gogol in the edition of A. F. Marks, vol. 4-"Two scenes excluded from the first edition because they slowed down the action of the play." The scene with Rastakovskii. t Interested, I look to see whether Rastakovskii has remained anywhere in the canonical text. I leaf through, I don't find him, I get bored, I slam the book shut. What's this? "Bound at the 'Niva' Bindery," I read at the bottom of the cover. Yes, it's neatly bound. They used to bind things neatly then. It's nice to hold in your hand. Greenish blue calico, the gold hasn't all worn off yet. The colophon is a convolvulus flower, like a question. There's no price on the back. But-what's this? I closed Gogol, but here's Gogol again. Under that flower is printed, "Drawing approved by the Government." That is, this very flower has been approved. It's small comfort that then the govern- 'Khoma is destroyed by a glance from the gnome Vii, a stout creature covered with black earth, with eyelids that hang down to the ground and a face made of iron. tIn his 1842 Collected Works, Gogol included two...