Nevsky Prospect (story)
The story The Newski Prospect ( Russian: Невский Проспект ) by Nikolai Wassiljewitsch Gogol describes the Nevsky Prospect , a street in Saint Petersburg , in a brilliant way, at the end this representation is withdrawn. The story belongs to Gogol's Petersburg novellas .
action
In the course of a day, the people who appear here are described: in the morning the prospectus is almost empty, beggars gather in front of the doors, peasants with dirty boots cross the street. At noon it becomes livelier, court masters appear with their pupils, governesses with their children, in the afternoon the fathers of the family with their wives and a little later officials and all sorts of other distinguished personalities. Finally, in the evening, when the lanterns are lit, the young "college registrars, governorate and college secretaries", but also "clerks, workers and merchants" promenade, all of Petersburg seems to have an appointment there. The microcosm of Nevsky Prospect represents the entire city of Petersburg, human activity as a phantasmagoria .
Two storylines run through the story: the enthusiastic artist Piskarjow meets a dark-haired girl whose beauty impresses him so much that he follows her and finally has to realize that she is a prostitute . At this realization he breaks and loses his mind. His friend, the lively lieutenant Pirogow, tied up with the blond wife of a German master locksmith and was beaten for it, so that the lieutenant lost his desire for adventure.
The experience of the two ends very differently: for Piskarjow the whole thing is a decisive experience in which he loses his mind and life, for Pirogow everything remains an episode. However, both were deceived by appearances, and that is the deeper meaning of the story, that ultimately everything is lies and deception, nothing is what it seems to be. The Nevsky Prospect remains a deceptively beautiful place and becomes particularly dangerous in the evening when "Satan himself" lights the lamps to "show everything in a false light".