A Terrible Vengeance

"For there is no worse punishment to Man, then to want to avenge and not being able to."

—Closing Narration

A very, very scary short story by Nikolai Gogol.

Tropes used in A Terrible Vengeance include:

• A Fate Worse Than Death: Several:
  • The Warlock , already dead, is gnawn at by his ancestors until the end of time.
  • His ancestors are tormented by every one of his atrocities in their graves, before they rise as revenants to devour him.
  • Petro attempts to rise, but cannot, and gnaws on his own bones instead of the Warlock's; he also grows beneath the Carpathians, and shakes the earth itself in his agony.
  • And, last but not least, Ivan is forced to watch the terrible vengeance he inflicted on his brother.
• Black Magic
• Eats Babies: Kills them, actually. Own toddler nephew/grandson, even.
• Evil Sorcerer
• Evil Makes You Ugly: In case of Glamour Failure, that is.
• Just-So Story: And that's why we have earthquakes.
• Our Zombies Are Different: The revenants.
• Rule of Scary: The reason a land-spanning undead corpse isn't ridiculous.
• Serial Escalation: Ok, there's no way it can get more vile/scary...Wait, it just did.
• You Can't Fight Fate