Of course, Gogol did not keep his promise.
O.S. 13.III.1841
Rome
You write that I should send something to Pogodin’s journal. God, if you knew how painful; how destructive this demand is for me—what an anguish and tormenting state it drove me into all of a sudden! It is a calamity just to tear my thoughts away from my sacred work [Dead Souls] now. No one who could really know what he was depriving me of would ever address such a request to me again. I swear that if I had the money I would give up however much money I had in place of submitting my essay! But so be it, I will hunt up some old scrap and, God, spend perhaps two or three weeks on its correction and finishing touches—because for me any small piece now requires almost as much consideration as a large one, because it will be almost coercion and every minute I will remember the fruitless magnitude of my sacrifice, my criminal sacrifice. No, I swear it, distracting me is a sin, a great sin, a burdensome sin! Only one who does not believe my words and to whom my thoughts are inaccessible can be allowed to do this. My work is great; my work is a way of salvation. I have died for everything trifling now; must I commit unforgivable crimes with daily rubbish for the contemptible vulgar business of a journal? And how will my essay help the journal? But the essay will be ready and sent off in about three weeks. I will nobly be sorry if it exacerbates my predisposition for illness. But I think not. God is merciful…The road, the road! I have strong hope for the road. Now it will be doubly beautiful for me. I will see my friends, my dear friends. Don’t tell anyone about my arrival, and tell Pogodin for him not to tell anyone either; if on the other hand you have already let the cat out of the bag, say that it is still not sure now. Don’t say anything about my work either. Embrace Pogodin and tell him that I am crying because I cannot be useful to him with respect to his journal, but that he, if a Russian feel of love for the fatherland beats in his heart, he should not demand that I give him anything.
N. Gogol