The Story of the Mirgorod puddle
After a visiting Gogol, Alexander Dumas headed to the hotel.
Gogol lay down on the sofa for a couple of minutes and suddenly fell asleep.
In a dream, he sees himself sailing on a large ferryboat along a huge river. Islands are ahead. The fairway narrows.
“It used to be easy to sail in these places,” Gogol recalls Kropotkin’s memoirs.
The river journey is getting harder and harder. However, the ferry continues to sail in the same direction.
Gogol is anxious: why is this route chosen?
The ferryboat shudders slightly. He ran aground. Gogol is trying to understand: what to do?
At this moment, he sees a ship approaching the ferryboat. At the ship is Alexander Dumas.
Alexander Dumas smiles kindly, says something pleasant in French and throws to Gogol a towing rope.
Gogol intends to catch the rope. But at that moment he feels someone's stern look.
The rope flies to Gogol. Gogol involuntarily looks around. Nikolay Pavlovich is strictly looking at him from the captain’s place.
Under the bottom of the ferryboat, a gnashing is heard again - the flow of a huge river and waves push the ferryboat further aground.
Gogol wakes up.
“I will write a story about the Mirgorod puddle!” ...
November 8, 2019 21:24
Translation from Russian into English: November 8, 2019 21:49.
Владимир Владимирович Залесский “Рассказ о миргородской луже”.