promptness, transported him to the Spanish frontier. Upon entering, he had seen many persons with shaved heads whom he decided must be grandees or soldiers. The State Chancellor had pushed him into a small room and threatened to beat him if he called himself Ferdinand VIII again, but Poprishchin, knowing it was a test, repeated his assertion, whereupon he was dealt two blows with a stick. Though painful, it hadn't troubled him because he knew it was merely an ancient chivalric ceremony for those being inducted into high office. Later, researching state affairs, he discovered that Spain and China are in fact the same country. He also became deeply troubled by an impending event: He succeeded in convincing the "grandees with shorn heads" to take urgent action to save the moon, but the Imperial Chancellor responded by beating him and driving him into his room. Such, he concludes, is the power of ancient customs in Spain. January in the same year, following after February. He is becoming increasingly astonished at the strangeness of Spanish customs. Today his head was shaved and they poured cold water on him, all the time ignoring his loud protestations. He fears that he might have fallen into the hands of the Inquisition and that the man he took to be the chancellor is in fact the Grand Inquisitor. He speculates that the affair has been arranged by France and England. The 25th. Today the Grand Inquisitor came into his room, but he had hidden himself in advance. The Inquisitor called out his old name and official title several times before finally calling out "Ferdinand the Eighth, King of Spain!" and driving him out from under the chair with a stick. Poprishchin is compensated for his pain with the discovery that "every cock has his Spain under his feathers". He feels only contempt for the impotent spite of the Inquisitor whom he knows to be only a machine and a tool of the English. 34 March. February 349. He can no longer endure the torture and humiliation, and cries out for help. A heartfelt prayer to his mother for the suffering of her orphan son concludes with the words: Themes Madness Gogol evokes common images of madness in his characterization of Poprischkin – auditory hallucination (the talking dogs), delusions of grandeur (thinking he is the King of Spain), and the institutional context of the asylum and