Nevsky Prospekt (story)

"Nevsky Prospekt" (Russian: Невский Проспект) is a short story by Nikolai Gogol, written between 1831 and 1834 and published in the collection Arabesques in 1835.

The narrator revels in the delights of the street, but he is filled with Poshlost, (defined by literary historian D. S. Mirsky as "'self-satisfied inferiority,' moral and spiritual.

The first story told is of a young, romantic painter, Piskarev, who follows a dark-haired woman (whom he likens to Perugino's Bianca[a]) to what turns out to be a brothel.

Pirogov is at first furious and determined to seek revenge, but he is mollified by eating puff pastries, reading a reactionary newspaper and spending an evening dancing.

The story concludes with the narrator's warning that "Nevsky Prospekt deceives at all hours of the day, but the worst time of all is at night... when the devil himself is abroad, kindling the street-lamps with one purpose only: to show everything in a false light."