In V. V. Veresaev's encyclopedic compendium of Gogoliana, Gogol' v iizni, one anecdote stands out in its brilliant encapsulation of Gogol's problematic engagement with all things Classical. It is a story taken from V. N. Repnina's 1890 account of Gogol's life: Foronib paccKa3bIBan', 'TO B HexKHHCKOM rHnee 6buI y HHX npoceccop rpexiecKOrO M3bIKa, rpeK /H. H. Heponec/. OH InHTaI CTyJeHTaM FoMepa, KOToporO HHKTO H3 HHX He HOHHMaRI. UHpOrMTaB HeCKOJIbKO CTpOK, OH HOJHOCHJ ABa naJabla KO pTy, meJIKHeT H, OTBOJR flnaJblbI, rOBOpHT: xIyJecHO!-C CHJIbHbIM rpexIeCKHM BbIrOBpOM. HOTOM, npOIrTaB O KaKOM-TO cpaxeHHH, OH nepeBen rpexecKHi TeKCT CJIOBaMH: OHH OJIO)KHJIH )KHBOTHKH CBOH Ha HOXCHKH, H BeCb Knacc pa3pa3HJICn rpOMKHM CMexOM. TorAa npo eccop cKa3aJi: Ho-pyccKH 3TO CMeIlHO, a no-rpeiecKH OIeHb )KaJIKO.9' This anecdote from Gogol's less than prodigious secondary school career possesses for all its brevity a bit of that sly and sudden pathos which so often surfaces in Gogol's stories. In the end, after all, the joke turns unexpectedly to one of Gogol's lifelong dilemmas: how to translate the epic tradition into Russian without it becoming inadvertently comic-the butt, as it were, of schoolboy snickers. The problem was not translation in the literal sense (for Gogol could hardly claim, with V. K. Kjuxel'beker, that Homer in the original was son pain quotidien2), but rather a matter of finding a way of translating the cultural and spiritual resonance of the epic mode into Gogol's peculiar idiom, a task at which the writer failed repeatedly, but in, of course, the most splendid way.3 The adult Gogol would continually find himself in the awkward position of the teacher who cannot find a way to translate epic glories into a suitably lofty language, i.e., one strong enough to escape the deadly undertow of the comic. Yet it was terribly important to Gogol that Russia be at in the epic tradition, and indeed, he believed that epic models could serve as a beacon to Russia in its search for a way home to the great national destiny of the Orthodox Slavs. He greeted Zukovskij's translation of the Odyssey (1842-1848, published 1849) with great pleasure, although we cannot be certain that he ever actually read it all the way through.4 In an