I tried to present in a mass the results arising from the one crying evil of Russia, as I recognized it in that year; to expose every crime that is committed in those offices, where the strictest uprightness should be required and expected. I meant to satirize the great evil. The effect produced upon the public was a sort of terror; for they felt the force of my true sentiments, my real sadness and disgust, through the gay satire."
In fact, the disagreeable effect predominated over the fun, especially in the opinion of a foreigner; for there is nothing of the French lightness and elegance of diction in the Russian style. I mean that quality which redeems Moliere's "Tartuffe" from being the blackest and most terrible of dramas.
When we study the Russian drama, we can see why this form of art is more backward in that country than in any other. Poetry and romance have made more rapid strides, because they are taken up only by the cultivated class. There is virtually no middle class; and theatrical literature, the only diversion for the people, has remained in its infancy.
There is an element of coarseness in the drollery of even the two masterpieces: the comedy by Griboyedof, "Le Mal de Trop d'Esprit," and the "Revizor" by Gogol. In their satire there is no medium between broad fun and bitterness. The subtle wit of the French author
