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132 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1835
To-day is a day of the greatest rejoicing. Spain has a King. He has been discovered. I am that King. It was only to-day I found it out. The revelation came to me like a flash of lightning.
But men are unfair, with this way of reckoning in weeks. The Jews invented it because it’s their Rabbi’s washing time� And all those fathers, holders of office, all that set of theirs who fawn on everyone and push their way to court, and call themselves patriots and what not, � it’s bonuses, bonuses, all these patriots want! They’d sell their father and mother and God for money, � ambitious snobs, Judases! All this is caused by ambition, and ambition is caused by a little vessel situated under the tongue, and in the vessel there is a small worm no bigger than a pin’s head, and all this is made by a barber who lives in Gorokhovaya Street. I forget his name, but I know for a fact that in concert with a certain midwife he is trying to spread Mahomedanism all over the world, and I am told that in France the majority of the people have already adopted the religion of Mahomet.
It was an old man with a face the color of bronze, gaunt, high-cheekboned; the features seemed to have been caught at a moment of convulsive movement and bespoke an un-northern force. Fiery-noon was stamped on them. He was draped in a loose Asiatic costume. Damaged and dusty though the portrait was, when he managed to clean the dust off the face, he could see the marks of a lofty artist’s work. The portrait, it seemed, was unfinished; but the force of the brush was striking. Most extraordinary of all were the eyes: in them the artist seemed to have employed all the force of his brush and all his painstaking effort. They simply stared, stared even out of the portrait itself, as if destroying its harmony by their strange aliveness. When he brought the portrait to the door, the eyes stared still more strongly.
“I confess I felt deeply troubled when I considered how unusually delicate and insubstantial the moon is. The moon, as everyone knows, is usually made in Hamburg, and they make a complete hash of it. I’m surprised that the English don’t do something about it. The moon is manufactured by a lame cooper, and it’s obvious the idiot has no idea what it should be made of. The materials he uses are tarred rope and linseed oil. That’s why there’s such a terrible stink all over the earth, which makes us stop our noses up. And it also explains why the moon is such a delicate sphere, and why people can’t live there � only noses. For this reason we can’t see our own noses any more, as they’re all on the moon.� Gogol, Diary of a Madman
Madrid, February 30th. � So I am in Spain after all! It has happened so quickly that I could hardly take it in. The Spanish deputies came early this morning, and I got with them into the carriage. This unexpected promptness seemed to me strange. We drove so quickly that in half an hour we were at the Spanish frontier. Over all Europe now there are cast-iron roads, and the steamers go very fast. A wonderful country, this Spain!
As we entered the first room, I saw numerous persons with shorn heads. I guessed at once that they must be either grandees or soldiers, at least to judge by their shorn heads.
The Chancellor of the State, who led me by the hand, seemed to me to behave in a very strange way; he pushed me into a little room and said, “Stay here, and if you call yourself “King Ferdinand� again, I will drive the wish to do so out of you.�
I knew, however, that that was only a test, and I reasserted my conviction; on which the Chancellor gave me two such severe blows with a stick on the back, that I could have cried out with the pain. But I restrained myself, remembering that this was a usual ceremony of old � time chivalry when one was inducted into a high position, and in Spain the laws of chivalry prevail up to the present day. When I was alone, I determined to study State affairs; I discovered that Spain and China are one and the same country, and it is only through ignorance that people regard them as separate kingdoms.