Текст книги "The Collected tales of Nikolai Gogol"

Автор книги: Николай Гоголь

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What happened after that, I don't remember. Pidorka made a vow to go on a pilgrimage; she collected the property left by her father and a few days later was indeed no longer in the village. Where she went, no one could say. Obliging old women had already sent her to the same place Petro had taken himself to; but a

Cossack come from Kiev told that he had seen a nun in the convent, all dried up like a skeleton and ceaselessly praying, in whom the villagers by all tokens recognized Pidorka; that supposedly no one had yet heard even one word from her; that she had come on foot and brought the casing for an icon of the Mother of God studded with such bright stones that everyone shut their eyes when they looked at it.

Sorry, but that was not the end yet. The same day that the evil one laid hands on Petrus, Basavriuk appeared again; only everybody ran away from him. They knew now what kind of bird he was; none other than Satan, who had taken human form in order to dig up treasures-and since treasures can't be taken with unclean hands, he lured young fellows away. That same year everybody abandoned their dugout homes and moved to the village; but there was no peace from the accursed Basavriuk there either. My late grandfather's aunt used to say that he was vexed with her the most, precisely for having abandoned the former tavern on Oposhnyanskaya Road, and he tried with all his might to vent his anger on her. Once the village elders gathered in the tavern and were having, as they say, a proper conversation at table, in the middle of which stood a roast lamb of a size it would be sinful to call small. They chatted about this and that, about all sorts of marvels and wonders. And they fancied-it would be nothing if one of them did, but it was precisely all of them-that the lamb raised its head, its mischievous black eyes came to life and lit up, and that instant a black, bristling mustache appeared, twitching meaningfully at those present. Everybody recognized the lamb's head at once as Basavriuk's mug; my grandfather's aunt even thought he was about to ask for some vodka… The honorable elders grabbed their hats and hastily went their ways. Another time the church warden himself, who liked now and then to have a private little chat with an old-time glass, before he even reached the bottom, saw the glass bow to the ground before him. Devil take it! he began crossing himself!… And then another wonder with his better half: she had just started mixing dough in a huge tub when the tub suddenly jumped away. "Stop, stop!"-but nothing doing: arms akimbo, with an imposing air, it broke into a squatting dance all around the room… Go on and laugh; but our grandfathers were in no mood for laughter. And even though Father Afanasy walked around the whole village with holy water and chased the devil down all the streets with the sprinkler, all the same, my late grandfather's aunt complained that as soon as evening came, somebody started knocking on the roof and scratching at the wall.

Not only that! Now, for instance, on this same spot where our village stands, everything seems quiet; but not so long ago, my late father and I still remembered that a good man couldn't pass by the ruins of the tavern, which the unclean tribe 12 kept fixing up at their own expense for a long time afterwards. Smoke poured from the sooty chimney in a column and, rising so high that your hat would fall off if you looked at it, poured hot coals all over the steppes, and the devil-no need to mention that son-of-a-dog– sobbed so pitifully in his hovel that the frightened jackdaws rose in flocks from the nearby oak grove and with wild cries dashed about the sky.

The Night Before Christmas

The last day before Christmas had passed. A wintry, clear night came. The stars peeped out. The crescent moon rose majestically in the sky to give light to good people and all the world, so that everyone could merrily go caroling and glorify Christ.* The frost had increased since morning; but it was so still that the frosty creaking under your boots could be heard for half a mile. Not one group of young lads had shown up under the windows of the houses yet; only the moon peeked stealthily into them, as if inviting the girls sprucing themselves up to hurry and run out to the creaking snow. Here smoke curled from the chimney of one cottage and went in a cloud across the sky, and along with the smoke rose a witch riding on a broom.

If the Sorochintsy assessor had been passing by just then, driving * Among us, to go caroling [koliadovat] means to sing songs called koliadki under the windows on Christmas Eve. The master or mistress of the house, or anyone staying at home, always drops into the carolers' sack some sausage or bread or a copper coin, whatever bounty they have. They say there used to be an idol named Koliada who was thought to be a god, and that is where the koliadki came from. Who knows? It's not for us simple people to discuss it. Last year Father Osip forbade going caroling around the farmsteads, saying folk were pleasing Satan by it. However, to tell the truth, there's not a word in the koliadki about Koliada. They often sing of the nativity of Christ; and in the end they wish health to the master, the mistress, the children, and the whole household. (The Beekeepers note.) a troika of hired horses, in a hat with a lamb's wool band after the uhlan fashion, in a dark blue coat lined with astrakhan, with the devilishly woven whip he used to urge his coachman on, he would surely have noticed her, for no witch in the world could elude the Sorochintsy assessor. He could count off how many piglets each woman's sow had farrowed, and how much linen lay in every chest, and precisely which of his clothes and chattels a good man had pawned in the tavern of a Sunday. But the Sorochintsy assessor was not passing by, and what business did he have with other people, since he had his own territory. And the witch, meanwhile, rose so high that she was only a black spot flitting overhead. But wherever the spot appeared, the stars disappeared from the sky one after another. Soon the witch had a sleeve full of them. Three or four still shone. Suddenly, from the opposite direction, another little spot appeared, grew bigger, began to spread, and was no longer a little spot. A nearsighted man, even if he put the wheels of the commissar's britzka on his nose for spectacles, still wouldn't have been able to make out what it was. From the front, a perfect German:* the narrow little muzzle, constantly twitching and sniffing at whatever came along, ended in a round snout, as with our pigs; the legs were so thin that if the headman of Yareskov had had such legs, he'd have broken them in the first Cossack dance. To make up for that, from behind he was a real provincial attorney in uniform, because he had a tail hanging there, sharp and long as uniform coattails nowadays; and only by the goat's beard under his muzzle, the little horns sticking up on his head, and the fact that he was no whiter than a chimney sweep, could you tell that he was not a German or a provincial attorney, but simply a devil who had one last night to wander about the wide world and teach good people to sin. Tomorrow, as the first bells rang for matins, he would run for his den, tail between his legs, without looking back.

Meanwhile the devil was quietly sneaking toward the moon and had already reached out his hand to snatch it, but suddenly pulled *Among us, anyone from a foreign land is called a German, whether he's a Frenchman, a Swiss, or a Swede-they're all Germans. (The Beekeeper's note.) it back as if burnt, sucked his fingers, shook his leg, and ran around to the other side, but again jumped away and pulled his hand back. However, despite all his failures, the sly devil did not give up his pranks. Running up to it, he suddenly seized the moon with both hands, wincing and blowing, tossing it from one hand to the other, like a muzhik who takes a coal for his pipe in his bare hands; at last he hastily hid it in his pocket and ran on as if nothing had happened.

In Dikanka nobody realized that the devil had stolen the moon. True, the local scrivener, leaving the tavern on all fours, saw the moon dancing about in the sky for no reason and swore to it by God before the whole village; but people shook their heads and even made fun of him. But what led the devil to decide on such a lawless business? Here's what: he knew that the wealthy Cossack Choub had been invited for kutya 1 by the deacon, and that there would also be the headman, a relative of the deacon's in a blue frock coat who sang in the bishop's choir and could hit the lowest bass notes, the Cossack Sverbyguz, and others; that besides kutya there would be spiced vodka, saffron vodka, and lots of other things to eat. And meanwhile his daughter, the beauty of the village, would stay at home, and this daughter would certainly be visited by the blacksmith, a stalwart and fine fellow, whom the devil found more disgusting than Father Kondrat's sermons. The blacksmith devoted his leisure time to painting and was reputed to be the best artist in the whole neighborhood. The then still-living chief Lko himself had summoned him specially to Poltava to paint the wooden fence around his house. All the bowls from which the Dikanka Cossacks supped their borscht had been decorated by the blacksmith. The blacksmith was a God-fearing man and often painted icons of the saints: even now you can find his evangelist Luke in the Tchurch. But the triumph of his art was one picture painted on the church wall in the right-hand vestibule, in which he portrayed Saint Peter on the day of the Last Judgment, with the keys in his hand, driving the evil spirit out of hell; the frightened devil is rushing in all directions, sensing his doom, and the formerly confined sinners are beating him and driving him about with whips, sticks, and whatever else they can find. All the while the artist was working on this picture, painting it on a big wooden board, the devil tried as hard as he could to hinder him: shoved his arm invisibly, raised up ashes from the forge in the smithy and poured them over the picture; but the work got done despite all, the board was brought to church and set into the wall in the vestibule, and ever since then the devil had sworn vengeance on the blacksmith.

One night only was left him to wander about the wide world, but on this night, too, he sought some way to vent his anger on the blacksmith. And for that he decided to steal the moon, in hopes that old Choub was lazy and not easy to budge, and the deacon's place was not all that close to his: the road went beyond the village, past the mills, past the cemetery, and around the gully. If it had been a moonlit night, the spiced vodka and saffron vodka might have tempted Choub, but in such darkness you would hardly succeed in dragging him down from the stove 2 and getting him out of the cottage. And the blacksmith, who had long been on bad terms with him, would never dare visit his daughter with him there, for all his strength.

So it was that, as soon as the devil hid the moon in his pocket, it suddenly became so dark all over the world that no one could find the way to the tavern, to say nothing of the deacon's. The witch, seeing herself suddenly in the dark, cried out. Here the devil, sidling up to her, took her under the arm and started whispering in her ear what is usually whispered to the whole of womankind. Wondrous is the working of the world! All who live in it try to mimic and mock one another. Before, it used to be that in Mir-gorod only the judge and the mayor went about during the winter in cloth-covered sheepskin coats, and all of petty clerkdom wore plain uncovered ones; but now both the assessor and the surveyor have got themselves up in new coats of Reshetilovo astrakhan covered with broadcloth. Two years ago the clerk and the local scrivener bought themselves some blue Chinese cotton for sixty kopecks a yard. The sacristan had baggy summer trousers of nankeen and a waistcoat of striped worsted made for himself. In short, everything tries to get ahead! When will these people cease their vanity! I'll bet many would be surprised to see the devil getting up to it as well. What's most vexing is that he must fancy he's a handsome fellow, whereas-it's shameful to look him in the face. A mug, as Foma Grigorievich says, that's the vilest of the vile, and yet he, too, goes philandering! But it got so dark in the sky, and under the sky, that it was no longer possible to see what went on further between them.

"So, chum, you haven't been to the deacon's new house yet?" the Cossack Choub was saying as he came out the door of his cottage to a tall, lean muzhik in a short sheepskin jacket with a stubbly chin that showed it hadn't been touched in over two weeks by the broken piece of scythe a muzhik usually shaves with for lack of a razor. "There'll be good drinking there tonight!" Choub continued, with a grin on his face. "We'd better not be late."

With that, Choub straightened the belt that tightly girded his coat, pulled his hat down hard, clutched his knout-a terror and threat to bothersome dogs-but, looking up, he stopped…

"What the devil! Look, look, Panas!…"

"What?" said his chum, and also threw his head back.

"How, what? There's no moon!"

"What the deuce! It's a fact, there's no moon."

"None at all," said Choub, somewhat vexed at the chum's unfailing indifference. "Not that you care, I suppose."

"But what can I do?"

"It had to happen," Choub went on, wiping his mustache on his sleeve, "some devil-may the dog have no glass of vodka in the morning-had to interfere!… Really, as if for a joke… I looked out the window on purpose as I sat inside: a wonder of a night! Clear, snow shining in the moonlight. Everything bright as day. The moment I step out the door-it's pitch-dark!"

Choub spent a long time grumbling and swearing, all the while pondering what to decide. He was dying to chatter about all sorts of nonsense at the deacon's, where, without any doubt, the headman was already sitting, and the visiting bass, and the tar dealer Mikita, who went off to the Poltava market every two weeks and cracked such jokes that good people held their sides from laughter.

Choub could already picture mentally the spiced vodka standing on the table. All this was tempting, it's true; but the darkness of the night reminded him of the laziness so dear to all Cossacks. How good it would be to lie on the stove now, with his knees bent, calmly smoking his pipe and listening, through an entrancing drowsiness, to the carols and songs of the merry lads and girls coming in crowds to the windows. He would, without any doubt, have decided on the latter if he had been alone, but now for the two of them it would not be so boring or scary to walk through the dark night, and he did not really want to appear lazy or cowardly before the others. Having finished swearing, he again turned to the chum:

"So there's no moon, chum?"

"No."

"It's odd, really! Give me a pinch. Fine snuff you've got there, chum! Where do you get it?"

"The devil it's fine," replied the chum, closing the birchbark pouch all covered with pinpricked designs. "It wouldn't make an old hen sneeze!"

"I remember," Choub went on in the same way, "the late tavern keeper Zozulia once brought me some snuff from Nezhin. Ah, what snuff that was! such good snuff! So, then, chum, what are we going to do? It's dark out."

"Let's stay home, then, if you like," said the chum, grasping the door handle.

If the chum hadn't said it, Choub would certainly have decided to stay home, but now something seemed to tug at him to do the contrary.

"No, chum, let's go! It's impossible, we have to go!"

Having said that, he was already annoyed with himself for it. He very much disliked dragging himself anywhere on such a night; but it was a comfort to him that he himself had purposely wanted it and was not doing as he had been advised.

The chum, showing not the least vexation on his face, like a man to whom it was decidedly all the same whether he stayed home or dragged himself out, looked around, scratched his shoul– ders with the butt of his whip, and the two chums set out on their way.

Now let's have a look at what the beautiful daughter was doing, left alone. Oksana had not yet turned seventeen, but already in almost all the world, on this side of Dikanka and on the other, the talk was of nothing but her. The young lads, one and all, declared that there had never been, nor ever would be, a better girl in the village. Oksana knew and heard all that was said about her, and was capricious, as beauties will be. If she had gone about not in a checkered wraparound and a woolen apron, but in some sort of capote, she would have sent all her maids scurrying. The lads chased after her in droves, but, losing patience, gradually dropped out and turned to others less spoiled. The blacksmith alone persisted and would not leave off his wooing, though he was treated no better than the rest.

After her father left, she spent a long time dressing up and putting on airs before a small tin-framed mirror, and couldn't have enough of admiring herself. "Why is it that people decided to praise my prettiness?" she said as if distractedly, so as to chat with herself about something. "People lie, I'm not pretty at all." But in the mirror flashed her fresh face, alive in its child's youngness, with shining dark eyes and an inexpressibly lovely smile which burned the soul through, and all at once proved the opposite. "Are my dark eyebrows and eyes," the beauty went on, not letting go of the mirror, "so pretty that they have no equal in the world? What's so pretty about this upturned nose? and these cheeks? and lips? As if my dark braids are pretty! Ugh! they could be frightening in the evening: they twist and twine around my head like long snakes. I see now that I'm not pretty at all!" and then, holding the mirror further away from her face, she exclaimed: "No, I am pretty! Ah, how pretty! A wonder! What joy I'll bring to the one whose wife I become! How my husband will admire me! He won't know who he is. He'll kiss me to death."

"A wonderful girl!" the blacksmith, who had quietly come in, whispered, "and so little boasting! She's been standing for an hour looking in the mirror and hasn't had enough, and she even praises herself aloud!"

"Yes, lads, am I a match for you? Just look at me," the pretty little coquette went on, "how smooth my step is; my shirt is embroidered with red silk. And what ribbons in my hair! You won't see richer galloons ever! All this my father bought so that the finest fellow in the world would marry me!" And, smiling, she turned around and saw the blacksmith…

She gave a cry and stopped sternly in front of him.

The blacksmith dropped his arms.

It's hard to say what the wonderful girl's dusky face expressed: sternness could be seen in it, and through the sternness a certain mockery of the abashed blacksmith; and a barely noticeable tinge of vexation also spread thinly over her face; all this was so mingled and so indescribably pretty that to kiss her a million times would have been the best thing to do at that moment.

"Why have you come here?" So Oksana began speaking. "Do you want to be driven out the door with a shovel? You're all masters at sidling up to us. You instantly get wind of it when our fathers aren't home. Oh, I know you! What, is my chest ready?"

"It will be ready, my dear heart, it will be ready after the holiday. If you knew how I've worked on it: for two nights I didn't leave the smithy. Not a single priest's daughter will have such a chest. I trimmed it with such iron as I didn't even put on the chief's gig when I went to work in Poltava. And how it will be painted! Go all around the neighborhood with your little white feet and you won't find the like of it! There will be red and blue flowers all over. It will glow like fire. Don't be angry with me! Allow me at least to talk, at least to look at you!"

"Who's forbidding you-talk and look at me!"

Here she sat down on the bench and again looked in the mirror and began straightening the braids on her head. She looked at her neck, at her new silk-embroidered shirt, and a subtle feeling of self-content showed on her lips and her fresh cheeks, and was mirrored in her eyes.

"Allow me to sit down beside you!" said the blacksmith.

"Sit," said Oksana, keeping the same feeling on her lips and in her pleased eyes.

"Wonderful, darling Oksana, allow me to kiss you!" the encouraged blacksmith said and pressed her to him with the intention of snatching a kiss; but Oksana withdrew her cheeks, which were a very short distance from the blacksmith's lips, and pushed him away.

"What more do you want? He's got honey and asks for a spoon! Go away, your hands are harder than iron. And you smell of smoke. I suppose you've made me all sooty."

Here she took the mirror and again began to preen herself.

"She doesn't love me," the blacksmith thought to himself, hanging his head. "It's all a game for her. And I stand before her like a fool, not taking my eyes off her. And I could just go on standing before her and never take my eyes off her! A wonderful girl! I'd give anything to find out what's in her heart, whom she loves! But, no, she doesn't care about anybody. She admires her own self; she torments poor me; and I'm blind to the world from sorrow; I love her as no one in the world has ever loved or ever will love."

"Is it true your mothers a witch?" said Oksana, and she laughed; and the blacksmith felt everything inside him laugh. It was as if this laughter echoed all at once in his heart and in his quietly aroused nerves, and at the same time vexation came over his soul that it was not in his power to cover this so nicely laughing face with kisses.

"What do I care about my mother? You are my mother, and my father, and all that's dear in the world. If the tsar summoned me and said: 'Blacksmith Vakula, ask me for whatever is best in my kingdom, and I will give it all to you. I'll order a golden smithy made for you, and you'll forge with silver hammers.' I'd say to the tsar: 'I don't want precious stones, or a golden smithy, or all your kingdom: better give me my Oksana!'"

"See how you are! Only my father is nobody's fool. You'll see if he doesn't marry your mother," Oksana said with a sly smile. "Anyhow, the girls are not here… what could that mean? It's long since time for caroling. I'm beginning to get bored."

"Forget them, my beauty."

"Ah, no! they'll certainly come with the lads. We'll have a grand party. I can imagine what funny stories they'll have to tell!"

"So you have fun with them?"

"More fun than with you. Ah! somebody's knocking; it must be the lads and girls."

"Why should I wait anymore?" the blacksmith said to himself. "She taunts me. I'm as dear to her as a rusty horseshoe. But if so, at least no other man is going to have the laugh on me. Just let me see for certain that she likes somebody else more than me-I'll teach him…"

The knocking at the door and the cry of "Open!" sounding sharply in the frost interrupted his reflections.

"Wait, I'll open it myself," said the blacksmith, and he stepped into the front hall, intending in his vexation to give a drubbing to the first comer.

It was freezing, and up aloft it got so cold that the devil kept shifting from one hoof to the other and blowing into his palms, trying to warm his cold hands at least a little. It's no wonder, however, that somebody would get cold who had knocked about all day in hell, where, as we know, it is not so cold as it is here in winter, and where, a chef's hat on his head and standing before the hearth like a real cook, he had been roasting sinners with as much pleasure as any woman roasts sausages at Christmas.

The witch herself felt the cold, though she was warmly dressed; and so, arms up and leg to one side, in the posture of someone racing along on skates, without moving a joint, she descended through the air, as if down an icy slope, and straight into the chimney.

The devil followed after her in the same fashion. But since this beast is nimbler than any fop in stockings, it was no wonder that at the very mouth of the chimney he came riding down on his lover's neck, and the two ended up inside the big oven among the pots.

The traveler quietly slid the damper aside to see whether her son, Vakula, had invited guests into the house, but seeing no one there except for some sacks lying in the middle of the room, she got out of the oven, threw off her warm sheepskin coat, straight– ened her clothes, and no one would have been able to tell that a minute before she had been riding on a broom.

The mother of the blacksmith Vakula was no more than forty years old. She was neither pretty nor ugly. It's hard to be pretty at such an age. Nevertheless, she knew so well how to charm the gravest of Cossacks over to herself (it won't hurt to observe in passing that they couldn't care less about beauty) that she was visited by the headman, and the deacon Osip Nikiforovich (when his wife wasn't home, of course), and the Cossack Korniy Choub, and the Cossack Kasian Sverbyguz. And, to do her credit, she knew how to handle them very skillfully. It never occurred to any one of them that he had a rival. If on Sunday a pious muzhik or squire, as the Cossacks call themselves, wearing a cloak with a hood, went to church-or, in case of bad weather, to the tavern-how could he not stop by at Solokha's, to eat fatty dumplings with sour cream and chat in a warm cottage with a talkative and gregarious hostess? And for that purpose the squire would make a big detour before reaching the tavern, and called it "stopping on the way." And when Solokha would go to church on a feast day, putting on a bright gingham shift with a gold-embroidered blue skirt and a nankeen apron over it, and if she were to stand just by the right-hand choir, the deacon was sure to cough and inadvertently squint in that direction; the headman would stroke his mustache, twirl his topknot around his ear, and say to the man standing next to him, "A fine woman! A devil of a woman!"

Solokha nodded to everyone, and everyone thought she was nodding to him alone. But anyone who liked meddling into other people's affairs would have noticed at once that Solokha was most amiable with the Cossack Choub. Choub was a widower. Eight stacks of wheat always stood in front of his house. Two yoke of sturdy oxen always stuck their heads from the wattle shed outside and mooed whenever they saw a chummy cow or their fat bull uncle coming. A bearded goat climbed on the roof and from there bleated in a sharp voice, like a mayor, teasing the turkey hens who strutted about the yard and turning his back whenever he caught sight of his enemies, the boys who made fun of his beard. In Choub's chests there were quantities of linen, fur coats, old– style jackets with gold braid-his late wife had liked dressing up. In his kitchen garden, besides poppies, cabbages, and sunflowers, two plots of tobacco were planted every year. All this Solokha thought it not superfluous to join to her own property, reflecting beforehand on the order that would be introduced into it once it passed into her hands, and she redoubled her benevolence toward old Choub. And to keep Vakula from getting round his daughter and laying hands on it all for himself, thus certainly preventing any mixing in on her part, she resorted to the usual way of all forty-year-old hens: making Choub and the blacksmith quarrel as often as possible. Maybe this keenness and cunning were responsible for the rumors started here and there by the old women, especially when they'd had a drop too much at some merry gathering, that Solokha was in fact a witch; that the Kizyakolupenko lad had seen she had a tail behind no longer than a spindle; that just two weeks ago Thursday she had crossed the road as a black cat; that the priest's wife once had a sow run in, crow like a rooster, put Father Kondrat's hat on her head, and run back out.

It so happened that as the old women were discussing it, some cowherd by the name of Tymish Korostyavy came along. He didn't fail to tell how in the summer, just before the Peter and Paul fast, 3 as he lay down to sleep in the shed, putting some straw under his head, he saw with his own eyes a witch with her hair down, in nothing but a shirt, start milking the cows, and he was so spellbound he couldn't move; after milking the cows, she came up to him and smeared something so vile on his lips that he spent the whole next day spitting. But all this was pretty doubtful, because no one but the Sorochintsy assessor could see a witch. And so all the notable Cossacks waved their hands on hearing this talk. "The bitches are lying!" was their usual response.

Having climbed out of the oven and straightened her clothes, Solokha, like a good housekeeper, began tidying up and putting things in order, but she didn't touch the sacks: "Vakula brought them in, let him take them out!" Meanwhile the devil, as he was flying into the chimney, had looked around somehow inadver-tendy and seen Choub arm in arm with his chum, already far from his cottage. He instantly flew out of the oven, crossed their path, and began scooping up drifts of frozen snow on all sides. A blizzard arose. The air turned white. A snowy net swirled back and forth, threatening to stop up the walkers' eyes, mouths, and ears. Then the devil flew back down the chimney, firmly convinced that Choub and his chum would turn back, find the blacksmith, and give him such a hiding that it would be long before he was able to take his brush and paint any offensive caricatures.

In fact, as soon as the blizzard arose and the wind began cutting right into their eyes, Choub showed repentance and, pulling his ear-flapped hat further down on his head, treated himself, the devil, and the chum to abuse. However, this vexation was a pretense. Choub was very glad of the blizzard. The distance to the deacon's was eight times longer than they had already gone. The travelers turned back. The wind was blowing from behind them; but they could see nothing through the sweeping snow.