Presented below is the famous passage from 'Dead Souls' (Мёртвые души) (full translation in English, in the excellent translation by D. J. Hogarth), whereby the Ukrainian-born Russian writer Nikolai Gogol compares Russia to a magical, omniscient troika, in one of the most well known piece of narration of Russian literature of all times.
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| Dead Souls (Мёртвые души), by Nikolaj Vasil'evič Gogol', First Original Edition, 1842 |
For what Russian does not love to drive fast? Which of us
does not at times yearn to give his horses their head, and to let them go,
and to cry, "To the devil with the world!"? At such moments a great force
seems to uplift one as on wings; and one flies, and everything else flies,
but contrariwise—both the verst stones, and traders riding on the
shafts of their wagons, and the forest with dark lines of spruce and fir
amid which may be heard the axe of the woodcutter and the croaking of the
raven. Yes, out of a dim, remote distance the road comes towards one, and
while nothing save the sky and the light clouds through which the moon is
cleaving her way seem halted, the brief glimpses wherein one can discern
nothing clearly have in them a pervading touch of mystery. Ah, troika,
troika, swift as a bird, who was it first invented you? Only among a hardy
race of folk can you have come to birth—only in a land which, though
poor and rough, lies spread over half the world, and spans versts the
counting whereof would leave one with aching eyes. Nor are you a
modishly-fashioned vehicle of the road—a thing of clamps and iron.
Rather, you are a vehicle but shapen and fitted with the axe or chisel of
some handy peasant of Yaroslav. Nor are you driven by a coachman clothed
in German livery, but by a man bearded and mittened. See him as he mounts,
and flourishes his whip, and breaks into a long-drawn song! Away like the
wind go the horses, and the wheels, with their spokes, become transparent
circles, and the road seems to quiver beneath them, and a pedestrian, with
a cry of astonishment, halts to watch the vehicle as it flies, flies,
flies on its way until it becomes lost on the ultimate horizon—a
speck amid a cloud of dust!
And you, Russia of mine—are not you also speeding like a troika
which nought can overtake? Is not the road smoking beneath your wheels,
and the bridges thundering as you cross them, and everything being left in
the rear, and the spectators, struck with the portent, halting to wonder
whether you be not a thunderbolt launched from heaven? What does that
awe-inspiring progress of yours foretell? What is the unknown force which
lies within your mysterious steeds? Surely the winds themselves must abide
in their manes, and every vein in their bodies be an ear stretched to
catch the celestial message which bids them, with iron-girded breasts, and
hooves which barely touch the earth as they gallop, fly forward on a
mission of God? Whither, then, are you speeding, O Russia of mine?
Whither? Answer me! But no answer comes—only the weird sound of your
collar-bells. Rent into a thousand shreds, the air roars past you, for you
are overtaking the whole world, and shall one day force all nations, all
empires to stand aside, to give you way!
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