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throughout the narrative:
     Peredonov orders a new uniform in anticipation of his future Inspectorship and dons his official cap with the cockade while
     mocking those teachers in the lower school system who are not allowed to wear such a cap.
    This was the kind of sociological detail that appealed to readers such as Gorky who could appreciate the accuracy of Sologub’s
     portrayal of the educational milieu in Russia at the turn of the century. 20
    It is not by chance that Sologub gave Trirodov, the hero of
The Created Legend
, his own physical features and aesthetic views. Nor is it any less an accident that Trirodov is both poet and chemist, for
     who would be better endowed to transform the creative dreams of the poet into reality than such a poet-alchemist? Sologub’s
     own dreams of transformation were as fervent as those of the other Symbolists. At the same time, however, he saw the impossibility
     of fulfillment. But not to dream, not to aspire—that would mean denial of the creative fantasy of the poet: “It is impossible
     to live without faith in a miracle … the miracle of transformation is impossible but it is essential … Only the ecstasy of
     creativity offers man a solution to this fateful contradiction.” 21 Futile, yet beautiful dreams are the most alluring, the most exquisite, just as the love of Sasha and Lyudmila in
The Petty Demon
is exquisitely sweet, yet impossible. As a number of his poems reveal, Sologub must have readily identified with the hopelessly
     romantic, the eternally old, but eternally young hero of Cervantes’ novel. Bedevilled by Aldonsa, beguiled by Dulcinea, that
     ridiculous epigone, Don Quixote, seeks the fulfillment of the impossible dream. Sologub must have caught in himself the wry
     reflection of that superannuated knight trapped in a time warp when he held the Symbolist’s beloved mirror up to his own unprepossessing
     visage. Ridiculous as he might have seemed, he was nevertheless unwilling to abandon his beloved, his chaste vision:
    By him alone is love not quit
    Whose love is love immortal,
    Whose passion leaves that love unspoilt,
    Whose heart is proffered to the stars,
    Whose love by death alone is quenched.
    The earth knows none who love like this.
    Except that madman, Don Quixote.
    Before his eyes, Aldonsa stands.
    That beastly sweat concerns him not
    Which all its earthbound toil
    Doth offer to the blissful sun!
    Aflame with ardor unexpired
    He loves alone with heart so true,
    That wretched madman, Don Quixote.
    That maid of low and common toil
    To Dulcinea he transformed.
    And bowing dawn before her feet
    He sings to her the sweetest hymns.
    Before that constant love of yours
    What means the heat of youthful love,
    Of fleeting love, O, Don Quixote!
    (
Don Quixote
, 1920)
    —S.D. C IORAN
    NOTES
    1 . See Georgette Donchin,
The Influence of French Symbolism on Russian Poetry
. ’S-Gravenhage, 1958.
    2 . Vladimir Solovyov, “Chteniya o Bogochelovechestve,” in
Sobranie sochineniy VS. Solovyova
, III, 118.
    3 . Carl Proffer and Ellendea Proffer (editors),
The Silver Age of Russian Culture
. Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1971, p. 5.
    4 .
Ibid
., p. 123.
    5 .
Ibid
., p. 4.
    6 .
Ibid
., p. 35.
    7 . See M.I. Dikman, “Poeticheskoe tvorchestvo Fyodora Sologuba,” in
Fyodor Sologub. Stikhotvoreniya
(Biblioteka Poeta, Bolshaya seriya, Izd. 2-oe). Leningrad, 1978.
    8 . See the Introduction to the second set of textual variants by S. Rabinowitz.
    9 . G. Chulkov,
Gody stranstviy
. Moscow, 1930, pp. 146–7.
    10 . F. Sologub,
The Created Legend
(Parts I-III). Translated by S.D. Cioran. Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1979.
    11 . P. Kogan,
Ocherki po istorii noveishey russkoy literatury
. Moscow, 1910, III (vypusk I), p. 103.
    12 . Maksim Gorky,
Sobranie sochineniy v 30 tomakh
. Moscow, 1949–55, XXX, p. 44.
    13 .
Ibid
., p. 46.
    14 . A.A. Izmailov,
Literaturnyi Olimp
. Moscow, 1911, p. 316.
    15 .
Ibid
., pp. 309–10.
    16 . Quoted by M.I. Dikman, p. 33.
    17 . See Opyt
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