Gogol's romanticism, shut in within himself, finding no outlet, became a flame.
It was a flame of pity.

He was like a man walking in hell, pitying.

And that was the miracle, the transfiguration.

Out of that flame of pity the Russian novel was born.
JOHN COURNOS Evenings on the Farm near the Dikanka, 1829-31; Mirgorod, 1831-33; Taras Bulba, 1834; Arabesques (includes tales, The Portrait and A Madman's Diary), 1831-35; The Cloak, 1835; The Revizor (The Inspector-General), 1836; Dead Souls, 1842; Correspondence with Friends, 1847; Letters, 1847, 1895, 4 vols.

1902.
ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS: Cossack Tales (The Night of Christmas Eve, Tarass Boolba), trans.