A story by this author ends after a hungover man who promised to host a dinner party is found by his angry guests hiding in the title vehicle. In a story by this author, a man becomes a monk to purify his soul after painting a religious scene in which every figure had demonic eyes. In that story by this author, a painter abandons his style and paints for aristocrats after a bag of money is found in the frame of a cursed portrait of a moneylender. Near the end of a story by this author, a cobbler named (*) Hoffmann helps beat up an officer for dancing with the wife of a tinsmith named Schiller. This author of the collection Arabesques wrote a story in which a painter who takes opium to dream of a dark-haired prostitute is contrasted with Lieutenant Pirogov, who followed a blonde woman down the title street. For 10 points, name this author who included the story “Nevsky Prospect” in his Petersburg Tales. ■END■
ANSWER: Nikolai Gogol [or Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol] (The first story is “The Carriage.” The story in the second and third sentences is “The Portrait.”)
<Literature - European Literature - Short Fiction>
= Average correct buzz position