This strange and captivating text is considered to be Gogol's masterpiece. In 2009, we are celebrating the bicentenary of his birth.

Poprichtchine, a civil servant, a feather-cutter, reveals his hallucinations to us. His love for the daughter of his superior turns into an obsession. The dates in his diary, initially very precise, become extremely vague, even fanciful, the places too. The narrator moves happily from the allusion to his daily life in the city of Saint Petersburg, to the evocation of Spain, or rather to these castles of Spain, dreams and obsessions that, like fragile sand castles, fall apart and make his alienating reality.

As a caricature of Petersburg's society, Gogol's narrative verve brings together realism and absurdity in this funny and touching tale.