He spent the evening with a friend, reading with him, as was the fashion of the time, Gogol's 'Dead Souls,' and returned home at four o'clock in the morning. It was one of the "white nights" of early summer, and he sat down by his window. Suddenly the door-bell rang, and in rushed Grigorovitch and Nekrásoff, who flung themselves upon his neck. They had begun to read his story in the evening, remarking that "ten pages would suffice to show its quality." But they had gone on reading, relieving each other as their voices failed them with fatigue and emotion, until the whole was finished. At the point where Pokrovsky's old father runs after his coffin, Nekrásoff pounded the table with the manuscript, deeply affected, and exclaimed, "Deuce take him!" Then they decide to hasten to Dostoévsky: "No matter if he is asleep--we will wake him up. _This_ is above sleep." This sort of glory and success was exactly of that pure, unmixed sort which Dostoévsky had longed for. When Nekrásoff went to Byelinsky with the manuscript of 'Poor People,' and announced, "A new Gogol has made his appearance!" the critic retorted with severity, "Gogols spring up like mushrooms among us." But when he had read the story he said, "Bring him hither, bring him quickly;" and welcomed Dostoévsky when he came, with extreme dignity and reserve, but exclaimed in a moment, "Do you understand yourself what sort of a thing this is that you have written?" From that moment the young author's fame was assured, and he became known and popular even in advance of publication in a wide circle of literary and other people, as was the fashion of those days in Russia. When the story appeared, the public rapturously echoed the judgment of the critics.