A play on Sprechen sie Deutsche ('Do you speak German?'), which in Russian pronunciation rhymes with the postmaster's patronymic.
Vassily I. Zhukovsky (1783-1852), poet and translator, was a friend of Pushkin and of Gogol; his translation of Homer's Odyssey was an inspiration to Gogol in the writing of Dead Souls. The poem Lyudmila, an adaptation of Lenore by the German poet Gottfried August Burger (1747-94), was published in 1808, and was 'a not-yet-faded novelty' only in such places as the town of N.
Edward Young (1683-1765) was an English poet who was a precursor of the romantics; his Night Thoughts were translated into Russian in 1780. Karl Eckartshausen (1752-1803), a German mystical writer, published his Key'm 1791.
Nikolai Karamzin (1766-1826) was already well-known for his sentimental tales and travel writing when he published his great history of Russia, on which his reputation now stands. The Moscow Gazette was a conservative daily newspaper subsidized by the government.
A 'kiss' in this case is an airy, sweet meringue.
Baiser, French for 'kiss,' is russified by Nozdryov, who then makes a diminutive of it, bezeshka, our 'bitsy baiser.'
A kalatch (pi. kalatchi) is a very fine white bread shaped like a purse with a looped handle.
The naming of the church is an absurd development along the lines of St. Martin's in the Fields or St. Mark's in the Bouwerie: nedo-tychki means 'bunglers' or 'botchers'; it may, by some stretch of the imagination, be a topographical name—Bungler's Hill, or Botcher's Lane.
A phonetic transcription of mispronounced French, meaning: ce qu'on appelle histoire ('what's known as a story, or scandal'). There will be other such transcriptions in what follows: 'orerr' for horreur, 'scandaleusities,' and the postmaster's 'finzerb' for fines herbes, the minced dried herbs used in cooking, which he apparently thinks is the name of some dish.
Rinaldo Rinaldini, an Italian brigand, is the eponymous hero of a novel by the German writer Christian August Vulpius (1762-1827), which had a resounding success throughout Europe and created the type of the Italian brigand in literature. Vulpius was Goethe's brother-in-law.
Commerages is French for the gossip spread by commeres, inquisitive, chatty women.
The original Vauxhall was a seventeenth-century pleasure garden in London. Russian adopted the name as a common noun referring to an outdoor space for concerts and entertainment, with teahouse, tables, and so on.
Kopeikin is the name of a robber in folklore; it derives from kopeika, the hundredth part of a rouble, anglicized as 'kopeck.' Gogol offered to change the name if his publisher ran into trouble from the censors.
