after which the Devil
appeared in the shape of a pig every year at the fair to find the
pieces. It is on this Red Jacket that the story turns.

In this first volume, the supernatural plays a predominant part
throughout; the stories tell of water-nymphs, the Devil, who steals
the moon, witches, magicians, and men who traffic with the Evil One
and lose their souls. In the second series, _Mirgorod_, realism comes
to the fore in the stories of "The Old-Fashioned Landowners" and "The
Quarrel of the Two Ivans." These two stories contain between them the
sum and epitome of the whole of one side of Gogol's genius, the
realistic side. In the one story, "The Old-Fashioned Landowners," we
get the gentle good humour which tells the charming tale of a South
Russian Philemon and Baucis, their hospitality and kindliness, and the
loneliness of Philemon when Baucis is taken away, told with the art of
La Fontaine, and with many touches that remind one of Dickens. The
other story, "The Quarrel of the Two Ivans," who are bosom friends and
quarrel over nothing, and are, after years, on the verge of making it
up when the mere mention of the word "goose" which caused the quarrel
sets alight to it once more and irrevocably, is in Gogol's richest
farcical vein, with just a touch of melancholy.

And in the same volume, two _nouvelles_, _Tarass Bulba_ and _Viy_, sum
up between them the whole of the other side of Gogol's genius. _Tarass
Bulba_, a short historical novel, with its incomparably vivid picture
of Cossack life, is Gogol's masterpiece in the epic vein. It is as
strong and as direct as a Border ballad. _Viy_, which tells of a
witch, is the most creepy and imaginative of his supernatural stories.

Later, he published two more collections of stories: _Arabesques_
(1834) and _Tales_ (1836). In these, poetry, witches, water-nymphs,
magicians, devils, and epic adventure are all left behind. The element
of the fantastic still subsists, as in the "Portrait," and of the
grotesque, as in the story of the major who loses his nose, which
becomes a separate personality, and wanders about the town. But his
blend of realism and humour comes out strongly in the story of "The
Carriage," and his blend of realism and pathos still more strongly in
the story of "The Overcoat," the story of a minor public servant who
is always shivering and whose dream it is to have a warm overcoat.
After years of privation he saves enough money to buy one, and on the
fir