t must be remembered
that the Russian priesthood is not celibate--was a fascinating French
woman, and she taught her native tongue in her husband's school. This
remarkable little institution had a small but select library, and here
young Goncharof indulged his taste in reading by devouring the Voyages
of Captain Cook, Mungo Park, and others, the histories of Karamzin and
Rollin, the poetical works of Tasso and Fenelon, as well as the romantic
fiction of that day; he was especially fascinated by 'The Heir of
Redclyffe.' His reading, however, was ill regulated and not well adapted
for his mental discipline. At twelve he was taken by his mother to
Moscow, where he had the opportunity to study English and German as well
as to continue his reading in French, in which he had already been well
grounded.

In 1831 he entered Moscow University, electing the Philological Faculty.
There were at that time in the University a coterie of young men who
afterwards became famous as writers, and the lectures delivered by a
number of enthusiastic young professors were admirably calculated to
develop the best in those who heard them. He finished the complete
course, and after a brief visit at his native place went to St.
Petersburg, where he entered the Ministry of Finance. Gogol, and
Goncharof himself, have painted the depressing influence of the
officialdom then existing. The _chinovnik_ as painted by those early
realists was a distinct type. But on the other hand, there was a
delightful society at St. Petersburg, and the literary impulses of
talented young men were fostered by its leaders. Some of these men
founded a new journal of which Salonitsuin was the leading spirit, and
in this appeared Goncharof's first articles. They were of a humoristic
tendency. His first serious work was entitled 'Obuiknavennaya Istoriya'
(An Ordinary Story),--a rather melancholy tale, showing how youthful
enthusiasm and the dreams of progress and perfection can be killed by
formalism: Aleksandr Aduyef the romantic dreamer is contrasted with his
practical uncle Peter Ivanovitch. The second part was not completed when
the first part was placed in the hands of the critic Byelinsky, the
sovereign arbiter on things literary. Byelinsky gave it his
"imprimatur," and it was published in the Sovremennik (Contemporary) in
1847. The conception of his second and by all odds his best romance,
'Oblomof,' was already in his mind; and the first draft was published in
the I