«Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, pourquoi m'envoyez-vous cette calamité ? (...) Sans nez, un homme n'est plus un homme. (...). Si encore je l'avais perdu en duel, ou à la guerre, ou par ma faute !... Hélas non ! Il a disparu comme cela, sans rime ni raison... Non, reprit-il après quelques instants de silence, c'est inconcevable».
Using a special blend of comedy, social commentary, and fantasy, Nikolai Gogol helped to introduce a realistic literary movement that led to the writings of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. The works included in this volume were written during Gogol's most productive period - a relatively short time of vigorous and brilliant creativity. As Leon Stilman states in his Afterword, "The reason for reading Gogol is that he is a great writer, in fact on of the most original, most delightfully and brilliantly inventive writers of the nineteenth century; one also whose perception of the world and whose art are often amazingly modern."