Although being surrounded and cheered with "A new Gogol is born!" felt great, Mikhail, after a moment of daze, hurriedly said to prevent being kicked out by the landlady:
"Hey! Hey! Quiet, Dmitri! Do you know what time it is? Why choose this hour to come over?"
"It's all because this fellow Nikolai insisted on dragging me here." Hearing this, Demitri was about to laugh loudly, but remembering Mikhail's warning, he managed to stop himself in time:
"I went to find him right after I left this morning, but he happened not to be home. I asked the maid to leave him a message and left the novel as well. Hey! Only God knows how worried I was! He didn't get home until very late, and after reading it, he came straight to find me. Once we talked it over, we couldn't help but come to see you immediately.
As it turns out, Mikhail, the place you live is really remote. It took us quite a while to finally find it!"
"I see." Having roughly understood what happened, Mikhail turned his gaze toward the thin but energetic young man before him and asked, "And this is?"
"Nikolai Alexeyevich Nekrasov." Giving his full name, the young man solemnly extended his hand: "Very glad to meet you!"
Nekrasov?
The long string of names at the beginning gave Mikhail a headache, but the last surname immediately triggered key memories.
To say what this name meant—in short, this young man before him was the "midwife of Russian realist literature."
Although the seeds of realism had appeared in Russian literature as early as Pushkin and Gogol, it wasn't until Belinsky that they were systematically summarized and expounded upon. During this process, this fellow had certainly contributed a great deal.
Like many Russian nobles, this fellow also displayed the traditional talent. Born into a noble family, his father was a retired officer. Originally, in 1838, his father was going to send him to the military academy in Saint Petersburg, essentially paving the way for his son.
But Nekrasov went against his father's wishes and chose to take the university entrance exams. After failing, he insisted on attending Saint Petersburg University as an auditing student.
In a fit of rage, his father cut off all financial support. Thus, at only seventeen years old, Nekrasov lived a life of long-term poverty, hunger, and cold.
But this fellow was indeed talented. That same year, he published poetry in Russia's top literary journal, "Notes of the Fatherland," and successively in other magazines, managing to make a living for the time being.
However, his literary path was not smooth. His first collection of poems, "Dreams and Sounds," published in 1840, was severely criticized by Belinsky, who was already emerging as a literary leader, because most were imitative works.
In his pain, he once stopped writing poetry.
But as painful as it was spiritually, life had to go on; otherwise, it would likely become even more painful.
Therefore, this fellow began writing letters and petitions for peasants and advertisements for merchants... while continuing his literary creations.
The turning point of fate soon arrived.
After a long period of struggling, Nekrasov figured out some tricks of the cultural market. He found that the "urban physiology" and "naturalism" sketches appearing in Paris, France, were very popular with readers. In short, this series of collections described the common people of Paris.
This happened to coincide with the new trend in Russian literature reflected in Pushkin's "The Stationmaster" and Gogol's "The Nose" and "the overcoat."
Nekrasov instinctively sensed the great potential of this new trend and began to do his utmost for it.
Starting in 1845, he edited a series of collections depicting the living conditions of the lower-class people in Russia.
This naturally drew strong dissatisfaction from some conservatives, who believed such works focused on "filthy" themes and belonged to the "Natural School," which lacked artistic beauty.
While conservatives opposed it, the literary leader of the time, Belinsky, stood completely on Nekrasov's side. He adopted the term "Natural School" and highly praised its courage to depict reality and its humanitarian spirit in daring to expose the dark side of Russian society.
In other words, this was the turning point where Russia moved from Romanticism toward Realism.
As for the significance of this work—let's put it this way: after this trend, familiar names like Turgenev, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy began to appear in the public eye, leading Russian literature to leap forward and become an undeniable peak in world literature.
This period is also known as the Golden Age of Russian literature.
At this current point in time, although Nekrasov is young, he has already made friends with many famous people in Saint Petersburg and can be said to have established himself in the cultural sphere.
He is currently likely officially committed to the publishing business and is running around to organize "The Physiology of Saint Petersburg."
As for Mikhail, he is a nobody among nobodies.
But Nekrasov was clearly much more solemn than Mikhail.
At this moment, looking at the young man before him, Mikhail also reached out to shake hands and then gave his own name:
"Mikhail Romanovich Raskolnikov. Are you the poet Nikolai Alexeyevich Nekrasov who published 'Dreams and Sounds'?"
"It's me. You've heard of it?" Stunned for a moment, Nekrasov was both surprised and delighted. But thinking of his very immature collection of poems, he said with some shame: "I really didn't expect you to know about that, but compared to your novel, my poetry is nothing."
Oh right, currently this fellow has not yet entered his mature period of creation; he was even a bit depressed from Belinsky's criticism.
"You will be," Mikhail said with a smile. "There is something precious in your poetry. At the right time and with the right subject matter, it will certainly be sparked, and it's only a matter of time before you become a great poet."
"That's really..."
Normally, this might have been a historic meeting, but unfortunately, before the two parties could talk further, the thick-waisted landlady, whose arms looked like they could race horses, had already charged over. Before she even arrived, her booming voice struck:
"Is there a funeral in your house?! Otherwise, why start praying for them at this hour?! Go to hell!"
"Going to sleep, going to sleep!" Closing the door hurriedly and answering, Mikhail looked at the two of them and said, "Dmitri, Nikolai, we'll talk about the rest when it's light. We must be quiet for a while now."