The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol

  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 shoulders 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, straightened 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 inadvertendy 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.

  "Wait, chum! I don't think this is the right way," Choub said after a short while. "I don't see any houses. Ah, what a blizzard! Go to that side a little, chum, maybe you'll find the road, and meanwhile I'll search over here. It was the evil one prompted us to drag around in such a storm! Don't forget to holler if you find the road. Eh, what a heap of snow the devil's thrown in my face!"

  The road, however, could not be seen. The chum went to one side and, wandering back and forth in his high boots, finally wandered right into the tavern. This find made him so happy that he forgot everything and, shaking off the snow, went into the front hall, not the least concerned about his chum who was left outside. Choub, meanwhile, thought he had found the road; he stopped and began shouting at the top of his lungs, but seeing that his chum didn't appear, he decided to go on by himself. He walked a little and saw his own house.

  Drifts of snow lay around it and on the roof. Clapping his hands, frozen in the cold, he began knocking at the door and shouting commandingly for his daughter to open.

  "What do you want here?" the blacksmith cried sternly, coming out.

  Choub, recognizing the blacksmith's voice, stepped back a little. "Ah, no, it's not my house," he said to himself, "the blacksmith wouldn't come to my house. Again, on closer inspection, it's not the blacksmith's either. Whose house could it be? There now! I didn't recognize it! It's lame Levchenko's, who recently married a young wife. He's the only one who has a house like mine. That's why it seemed a bit odd to me that I got home so soon. However, Levchenko is now sitting at the deacon's, that I know. Why, then, the blacksmith? . . . Oh-ho-ho! he comes calling on the young wife. That's it! Very well! . . . now I understand everything."