The Shadow of Great Britain

Chapter 1520: Chapter 255: Bloody Academic Achievement (3)

Seeing that he was on the losing side here, Gogol hurriedly changed the subject: ”What is the name of that student you mentioned?”

”Are you planning to mess with him?” Arthur shrugged and said, ”Nikolai, you can’t do that. He’s an ambitious and good student; the other day we chatted quite a bit about Shakespeare.”

”How could that be? I’m not that kind of person.” Gogol patted his chest and assured, ”I just plan to get his suggestions and personally ask what areas need improvement.”

Arthur didn’t have the habit of betraying others for no reason. However, he was genuinely curious to see what kind of sparks would fly between two Russian literary figures with a student-teacher relationship, so he blurted out, ”Second-year literature major Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev, he just transferred from Moscow University this semester.”

Gogol heard this name, and a look of surprise appeared on his face.

Seeing Gogol’s expression, Arthur immediately realized he might have overestimated this guy, who was pampered by the entire Petersburg literary circle.

Being a university professor who often left class early and was too lazy to prepare lectures, a peculiar person who sulks all night at literary gatherings just because he didn’t get the drink he liked, remembering the ”Student Roster” was indeed a daunting challenge for him.

Not everyone can be like Arthur, who can store various rosters and home addresses in his mind in detail.

If you set aside the brilliance aspect, with Gogol’s eccentric temper and unreliable behavior, it’s really hard to imagine how such a person could survive in the Russian bureaucracy.

But precisely because of his brilliance, whether it was Pushkin or Rukovski, everyone almost indulged this guy. Even though he had all sorts of childlike behaviors, people still went out of their way to flatter him to see his latest manuscripts.

A literary leader like Rukovski could specially leave during a gathering and send several aides to inquire at various stores already closed, just to buy alcohol for Gogol and make him happy.

When Pushkin visited Gogol’s home, if he didn’t find some of Gogol’s unpublished works, he would be distracted for several days.

Half of the Petersburg literary circle mobilized just to get him an associate professor position at Kyiv University.

Although it ultimately didn’t happen, it was enough to show Gogol’s influence.

Talented, but capricious—this is Gogol.

Thinking of this, Arthur couldn’t help but plot an idea about this guy.

Before stepping down as cultural consul, he must leave some achievements, and establishing the British-Slavic Literature Association was a great project.

This was within his jurisdiction and came without risk.

However, given his influence in the Russian literary circle, it was clearly insufficient to accomplish this task alone.

His initial plan was to seek Pushkin’s help to make connections, but at this point, reaching out to this ’conscience of Russia’ would easily attract the attention of the Tsar and the Third Bureau.

Unable to reach out to Pushkin, Gogol naturally became the alternative.

Their relationship, while not close, was at least familiar enough.

”Forget it, let’s not talk about unhappy things. I heard from Pushkin that you’ve recently written a new piece called ’The Nose’? He highly recommended it to me, said your writing was incredibly amusing, comparable to the ’Decameron.’”

Gogol pursed his lips upon hearing this: ”Being compared to the ’Decameron’ might be a bit exaggerated, but I also think it’s a good work. But can you believe it? The ’Moscow Observer’ actually rejected my ’The Nose’.”

”Ah?” Arthur was quite surprised by this—he had read ’The Nose’ long ago, even before Pushkin, which made it harder for him to believe ’The Nose’ would be rejected: ”What was the rejection reason?”

Gogol scoffed, tilted his head back, and drained his kvass: ”They said I wrote too lewdly.”