Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $9.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Mysterious Portrait
    The Mysterious Portrait
    The Mysterious Portrait
    Ebook81 pages1 hour

    The Mysterious Portrait

    By Nikolái Gógol

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    The Mysterious Portrait was written in the year 1842 by Nikolai Gogol. This book is one of the most popular novels of Nikolai Gogol, and has been translated into several other languages around the world.

    This book is published by Booklassic which brings young readers closer to classic literature globally.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBooklassic
    Release dateJul 7, 2015
    ISBN9789635257010
    The Mysterious Portrait
    Author

    Nikolái Gógol

    Nikolai Gogol (1809–1852) was a Russian writer and dramatist. He was born in the Ukraine in 1809 and trained as a painter before finding success as a writer. He soon became famous for his plays and short fiction, notably “The Diary of a Madman” (1834), “The Nose” (1836), and “The Overcoat” (1842). His novel, Dead Souls, was published in 1842.

    Read more from Nikolái Gógol

    Related to The Mysterious Portrait

    Related ebooks

    Short Stories For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Russian Roulette

      Feb 1, 2021

      As a longterm fan of Dostoevsky (and yes, unusually for a 19th century literary novelist, he does have a kind of fan club, many of whom are adolescents high on the thrill of first encountering his freewheeling combo of philosophical pondering and jaz

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Painter Provocateur

      Feb 23, 2018

      The Painter Provocateur
      6 min read

    • Article

      A Mournful Spring

      Mar 1, 2022

      in memory of Adam Zagajewski So many friends have you seen pass,maestro of the poetic eulogy. Now it’s my turn. Can you hear me?We don’t know. Why didn’t we spend more time together,talk more, call each other? I thought you’d live to be old,very ol

      1 min read

    • Article

      Chris Jennings

      Dec 8, 2020

      Chris Jennings
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Siren’s Call

      Dec 3, 2020

      The Siren’s Call
      4 min read

    • Article

      Why Utopias Are Dangerous

      Jun 24, 2022

      bigthink.com Nineteenth-century Russian writers were “obsessed” with the idea of utopia, says Tim Brinkhof. They wrote stories and treatises imagining how their own increasingly dysfunctional society could be replaced by one “devoid of suffering or

      1 min read

    • Article

      Jenny Diski's Curious Women

      Jan 25, 2018

      Jenny Diski's Curious Women
      5 min read

    • Article

      Philip Larkin: The Man Who Was Always Right

      Sep 29, 2022

      IN THE FONDLY-REMEMBERED Nineties comedy The Fast Show, one of the sketches revolved around the character of the jovial painter Johnny Nice, played by the series’ co-creator Charlie Higson. Johnny likes nothing more than to set-up his easel at a loca

      8 min read

    • Article

      Radiant Fog

      Apr 12, 2023

      MY FRIEND and I veered east on Highway 48 in northwestern Wisconsin as we headed for a July writers festival in my secondhand 1995 Geo Prizm, its metallic pale blue hood mottled with dark splotches as if decomposing. The previous owners, the nuns of

      9 min read

    • Article

      “The Old Ones Are The Best…”

      Dec 1, 2022

      When the festive season rolls round and Slade vocalist Noddy Holder for the umpteenth time barks “Does your granny always tell ya, that the old songs are the best” from his band’s 1973 hit Merry Xmas Everybody, I like to paraphrase such lyrics and ap

      6 min read

    • Article

      A Dusty Road

      Nov 26, 2021

      A Dusty Road
      3 min read

    • Article

      William Orpen

      Nov 29, 2019

      William Orpen
      5 min read

    • Article

      Journey of Mann

      Oct 10, 2021

      Journey of Mann
      2 min read

    • Article

      Picture A Poem

      Sep 1, 2022

      Picture A Poem
      3 min read

    • Article

      In The Bad Books

      Apr 1, 2022

      In The Bad Books
      8 min read

    • Article

      Triumphs of Pseudoscientific Reasoning: On Osip Mandelstam’s ‘Journey to Armenia’

      Oct 8, 2018

      1. In 1922, the same year the USSR entered the world, the poet Osip Mandelstam moved to Moscow, hoping to establish himself as a leading voice of the Socialist utopia he’d supported since his teens. Instead, he found himself an outcast. In early Sovi

      10 min read

    • Article

      The Illustrated Illustrated Man

      Jun 30, 2020

      The Illustrated Illustrated Man
      2 min read

    • Article

      On Bach

      Dec 1, 2022

      On Bach
      13 min read

    • Article

      Wonder And Doubt

      Aug 10, 2020

      Wonder And Doubt
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Whole World in His Hands

      Jun 1, 2023

      The Whole World in His Hands
      15 min read

    • Article

      How George V Won The War

      Sep 2, 2021

      How George V Won The War
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Corridor Stories

      Sep 1, 2022

      The Corridor Stories
      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Mysterious Portrait

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The Mysterious Portrait - Nikolái Gógol

      978-963-525-701-0

      Part 1

      Nowhere did so many people pause as before the little picture-shop in the Shtchukinui Dvor. This little shop contained, indeed, the most varied collection of curiosities. The pictures were chiefly oil-paintings covered with dark varnish, in frames of dingy yellow. Winter scenes with white trees; very red sunsets, like raging conflagrations, a Flemish boor, more like a turkey-cock in cuffs than a human being, were the prevailing subjects. To these must be added a few engravings, such as a portrait of Khozreff-Mirza in a sheepskin cap, and some generals with three-cornered hats and hooked noses. Moreover, the doors of such shops are usually festooned with bundles of those publications, printed on large sheets of bark, and then coloured by hand, which bear witness to the native talent of the Russian.

      On one was the Tzarevna Miliktrisa Kirbitievna; on another the city of Jerusalem. There are usually but few purchasers of these productions, but gazers are many. Some truant lackey probably yawns in front of them, holding in his hand the dishes containing dinner from the cook-shop for his master, who will not get his soup very hot. Before them, too, will most likely be standing a soldier wrapped in his cloak, a dealer from the old-clothes mart, with a couple of penknives for sale, and a huckstress, with a basketful of shoes. Each expresses admiration in his own way. The muzhiks generally touch them with their fingers; the dealers gaze seriously at them; serving boys and apprentices laugh, and tease each other with the coloured caricatures; old lackeys in frieze cloaks look at them merely for the sake of yawning away their time somewhere; and the hucksters, young Russian women, halt by instinct to hear what people are gossiping about, and to see what they are looking at.

      At the time our story opens, the young painter, Tchartkoff, paused involuntarily as he passed the shop. His old cloak and plain attire showed him to be a man who was devoted to his art with self-denying zeal, and who had no time to trouble himself about his clothes. He halted in front of the little shop, and at first enjoyed an inward laugh over the monstrosities in the shape of pictures.

      At length he sank unconsciously into a reverie, and began to ponder as to what sort of people wanted these productions? It did not seem remarkable to him that the Russian populace should gaze with rapture upon Eruslanoff Lazarevitch, on The Glutton and The Carouser, on Thoma and Erema. The delineations of these subjects were easily intelligible to the masses. But where were there purchases for those streaky, dirty oil-paintings? Who needed those Flemish boors, those red and blue landscapes, which put forth some claims to a higher stage of art, but which really expressed the depths of its degradation? They did not appear the works of a self-taught child. In that case, in spite of the caricature of drawing, a sharp distinction would have manifested itself. But here were visible only simple dullness, steady-going incapacity, which stood, through self-will, in the ranks of art, while its true place was among the lowest trades. The same colours, the same manner, the same practised hand, belonging rather to a manufacturing automaton than to a man!

      He stood before the dirty pictures for some time, his thoughts at length wandering to other matters. Meanwhile the proprietor of the shop, a little grey man, in a frieze cloak, with a beard which had not been shaved since Sunday, had been urging him to buy for some time, naming prices, without even knowing what pleased him or what he wanted. Here, I'll take a silver piece for these peasants and this little landscape. What painting! it fairly dazzles one; only just received from the factory; the varnish isn't dry yet. Or here is a winter scene—take the winter scene; fifteen rubles; the frame alone is worth it. What a winter scene! Here the merchant gave a slight fillip to the canvas, as if to demonstrate all the merits of the winter scene. Pray have them put up and sent to your house. Where do you live? Here, boy, give me some string!

      Hold, not so fast! said the painter, coming to himself, and perceiving that the brisk dealer was beginning in earnest to pack some pictures up. He was rather ashamed not to take anything after standing so long in front of the shop; so saying, Here, stop! I will see if there is anything I want here! he stooped and began to pick up from the floor, where they were thrown in a heap, some worn, dusty old paintings. There were old family portraits, whose descendants, probably could not be found on earth; with torn canvas and frames minus their gilding; in short, trash. But the painter began his search, thinking to himself, Perhaps I may come across something. He had heard stories about pictures of the great masters having been found among the rubbish in cheap print-sellers' shops.

      The dealer, perceiving what he was about, ceased his importunities, and took up his post again at the door, hailing the passers-by with, Hither, friends, here are pictures; step in, step in; just received from the makers! He shouted his fill, and generally in vain, had a long talk with a rag-merchant, standing opposite, at the door of his shop; and finally, recollecting that he had a customer in his shop, turned his back on the public and went inside. Well, friend, have you chosen anything? said he. But the painter had already been standing motionless for some time before a portrait in a large and originally magnificent frame, upon which, however, hardly a trace of gilding now remained.

      It represented an old man, with a thin, bronzed face and high cheek-bones; the features seemingly depicted in a moment of convulsive agitation. He wore a flowing Asiatic costume. Dusty and defaced as the portrait was, Tchartkoff saw, when he had succeeded in removing the dirt from the face, traces of the work of a great artist. The portrait appeared to be unfinished, but the power of the handling was striking. The eyes were the most remarkable picture of all: it seemed as though the full power of the artist's brush had been lavished upon them. They fairly gazed out of the portrait, destroying its harmony with their strange liveliness. When he carried the portrait to the door, the eyes gleamed even more penetratingly. They produced nearly the same impression on the public. A woman standing behind him exclaimed, He is looking, he is looking! and jumped back. Tchartkoff experienced an unpleasant feeling, inexplicable even to himself, and placed the portrait on the floor.

      Well, will you take the portrait? said the dealer.

      How much is it? said the painter.

      Why chaffer over it? give me seventy-five kopeks.

      No.

      Well, how much will you give?

      Twenty kopeks,

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1