"Let's see what's in it," they all shouted and hastened to untie the sack.
Here the hiccups that had never ceased to torment the headman all the while he was sitting in the sack became so bad that he started hicking and coughing very loudly.
"Ah, somebody's in there!" they all cried and rushed out of the house in fear.
"What the devil! Why are you running around like crazy?" said Choub, coming in the door. "Ah, Papa!" said Oksana, "there's somebody in the sack!"
"In the sack? Where did you get this sack?"
"The blacksmith left them in the middle of the road," they all said at once.
"Well," Choub thought to himself, "didn't I say so? . . ."
"What are you so afraid of?" he said. "Let's see. Now, then, my man, never mind if we don't call you by your full name—get out of the sack!"
The headman got out.
"Ah!" cried the girls.
"The headman was in it, too," Choub said to himself in perplexity, looking him up and down, "fancy that! . . . Eh! . . ." He could say nothing more.
The headman was no less confused himself and did not know how to begin.
"Must be cold out?" he said, addressing Choub.
"A bit nippy," Choub replied. "And, if I may ask, what do you grease your boots with, mutton fat or tar?"
He had not meant to say that, he had meant to ask: "How did you, the headman, get into this sack?" but, without knowing why himself, he had said something completely different.
"Tar's better!" said the headman. "Well, good-bye, Choub!" And, pulling down his earflaps, he walked out of the house.
"Why did I ask so stupidly what he greases his boots with!' Choub said, looking at the door through which the headman had gone. "That's Solokha! putting such a man into a sack!...A devil of a woman! Fool that I am . . . but where's that cursed sack?"
"I threw it in the corner, there's nothing else in it," said Oksana.
"I know these tricks—nothing else in it! Give it to me; there's another one sitting in it!
Shake it out well. . . What, nothing? . . . Cursed woman! And to look at her—just like a saint, as if she never put anything non-lenten near her lips."
But let us leave Choub to pour out his vexation at leisure and go back to the blacksmith, because it must already be past eight o'clock outside.
At first Vakula found it frightening when he rose to such a height that he could see nothing below and flew like a fly right under the moon, so that if he hadn't ducked slightly he would have brushed it with his hat. However, in a short while he took heart and began making fun of the devil. He was extremely amused by the way the devil sneezed and coughed whenever he took his cypress-wood cross from his neck and put it near him. He would purposely raise his hand to scratch his head, and the devil, thinking he was about to cross him, would speed up his flight. Everything was bright aloft. The air was transparent, all in a light silvery mist. Everything was visible; and he could even observe how a sorcerer, sitting in a pot, raced past them like the wind; how the stars gathered together to play blindman's buff; how a whole swarm of phantoms billowed in a cloud off to one side; how a devil dancing around the moon took his hat off on seeing the mounted blacksmith; how a broom came flying back, having just served some witch . . . they met a lot more trash. Seeing the blacksmith, all stopped for a moment to look at him and then rushed on their way again. The blacksmith flew on, and suddenly Petersburg, all ablaze, glittered before him. (It was lit up for some occasion.) The devil, flying over the toll gate, turned into a horse, and the blacksmith saw himself on a swift racer in the middle of the street.
My God! the clatter, the thunder, the glitter; four-story walls loomed on both sides; the clatter of horses' hooves and the rumble of wheels sounded like thunder and echoed on four sides; houses grew as if rising from the ground at every step; bridges trembled; carriages flew by; cabbies and postilions shouted; snow swished under a thousand sleds flying on all sides; passers-by pressed against and huddled under houses studded with lamps, and their huge shadows flitted over the walls, their heads reaching the chimneys and roofs.
The blacksmith looked about him in amazement. It seemed to him that the houses all turned their countless fiery eyes on him and stared. He saw so many gentlemen in fur-lined coats that he didn't know before whom to doff his hat. "My God, so much nobility here!" thought the blacksmith. "I think each one going down the street in a fur coat is another assessor, another assessor! And the ones driving around in those wonderful britzkas with windows, if they're not police chiefs, then they're surely commissars, or maybe even higher up." His words were interrupted by a question from the devil: "Shall we go straight to the tsaritsa?" "No, it's scary,"
thought the blacksmith. "The Zaporozhtsy who passed through Dikanka in the fall are staying here somewhere. They were coming from the Setch7 with papers for the tsaritsa. I'd better talk it over with them."
"Hey, little Satan, get in my pocket and lead me to the Zaporozhtsy."
The devil instantly shrank and became so small that he easily got into Vakula's pocket.
And before Vakula had time to look around, he found himself in front of a big house, went up the stairs, himself not knowing how, opened a door, and drew back slightly from the splendor on seeing the furnished room; then he took heart somewhat, recognizing the same Cossacks who had passed through Dikanka sitting cross-legged on silk divans in their tarred boots and smoking the strongest tobacco, the kind known as root-stock.
"Good day, gentlemen! God be with you! So this is where we meet again!" said the blacksmith, going closer and bowing to the ground.
"Who's that man there?" the one sitting right in front of the blacksmith asked another sitting further away.
"You don't recognize me?" said the blacksmith. "It's me, Vakula, the blacksmith! When you passed through Dikanka in the fall, you stayed—God grant you all health and long life—for nearly two days. And I put a new tire on the front wheel of your kibitka then!"
"Ah," said the first Cossack, "this is that same blacksmith who paints so well. Greetings, landsman, what brings you here?"
"Oh, I just came for a look around. They say . . ."
"Well, landsman," the Cossack said, assuming a dignified air and wishing to show that he, too, could speak Russian, "it's a beeg city, eh?"
The blacksmith did not want to disgrace himself and look like a greenhorn; what's more, as we had occasion to see earlier, he, too, was acquainted with literate language.
"A grand province!" he replied with equanimity. "No disputing it: the houses are plenty big, there's good paintings hanging everywhere. A lot of houses have an extremity of letters in gold leaf written on them. Wonderful proportions, there's no disputing it!"
The Zaporozhtsy, hearing the blacksmith express himself so fluently, drew very favorable conclusions about him.
"We'll talk more with you later, landsman; right now we're on our way to the tsaritsa."
"To the tsaritsa? Be so kind, masters, as to take me with you!"
"You?" the Cossack said, with the air of a tutor talking to his four-year-old charge who is begging to be put on a real, big horse. "What will you do there? No, impossible." With that, his face assumed an imposing mien. "We, brother, are going to discuss our own affairs with the tsaritsa."
"Take me!" the blacksmith persisted. "Beg them!" he whispered softly to the devil, hitting the pocket with his fist.
Before he got the words out, another Cossack spoke up:
"Let's take him, brothers!"
"All right, let's take him!" said the others.
"Get dressed the same as we are."
The blacksmith was just pulling on a green jacket when the door suddenly opened, and a man with gold braid came in and said it was time to go.
Again it seemed a marvel to the blacksmith, as he raced along in the huge carriage rocking on its springs, when four-storied houses raced backward past him on both sides, and the street, rumbling, seemed to roll under the horses' hooves.
"My
God, what light!" the blacksmith thought to himself. "Back home it's not so bright at noontime."
The carriages stopped in front of the palace. The Cossacks got out, went into the magnificent front hall, and started up the brilliantly lit stairway.
"What a stairway!" the blacksmith whispered to himself. "It's a pity to trample it underfoot. Such ornaments! See, and they say it's all tall tales! the devil it's tall tales! my God, what a banister! such workmanship! it's fifty roubles' worth of iron alone."
After climbing the stairs, the Cossacks passed through the first hall. The blacksmith followed them timidly, afraid of slipping on the parquet floor at every step. They passed through three halls, and the blacksmith still couldn't stop being amazed. On entering the fourth, he inadvertently went up to a painting that hung on the wall. It was of the most pure Virgin with the Child in her arms. "What a painting! what wonderful art!" he thought. "It seems to be speaking! it seems alive! And the holy Child! He clasps his little hands and smiles, poor thing! And the colors! oh, my God, what colors! I bet there's not a kopeck's worth of ochre; it's all verdigris and crimson, and the blue is so bright! Great workmanship! and the ground must have been done in white lead. But, astonishing as the painting is, this brass handle," he went on, going up to the door and feeling the latch, "is worthy of still greater astonishment. What perfect finish! I bet German blacksmiths made it all, and for a very dear price . . ."
The blacksmith would probably have gone on reasoning for a long time, if a lackey with galloons hadn't nudged his arm, reminding him not to lag behind. The Cossacks passed through two more halls and stopped. Here they were told to wait. In the hall there was a group of generals in gold-embroidered uniforms. The Cossacks bowed on all sides and stood in a cluster.
A minute later a rather stout man of majestic height, wearing a hetman's8 uniform and yellow boots, came in, accompanied by a whole retinue. His hair was disheveled, one eye was slightly askew, his face showed a certain haughty grandeur, all his movements betrayed a habit of command. The generals who had all been pacing up and down quite arrogantly in their golden uniforms began bustling about and bowing low and seemed to hang on his every word and even his slightest gesture, so as to rush at once and fulfill it. But the hetman did not pay any attention, barely nodded his head, and went up to the Cossacks. The Cossacks all gave a low bow.
"Are you all here?" he asked with a drawl, pronouncing the words slightly through his nose. "All here, father!" the Cossacks replied, bowing again.
"You won't forget to speak the way I taught you?"
"No, father, we won't forget."
"Is that the tsar?" the blacksmith asked one of the Cossacks.
"Tsar, nothing! it's Potemkin9 himself," the man replied.
Voices came from the other room, and the blacksmith did not know where to look from the multitude of ladies entering in satin dresses with long trains and the courtiers in gold-embroidered caftans and with queues behind. He saw only splendor and nothing more.
Suddenly the Cossacks all fell to the ground and cried out in one voice:
"Have mercy, mother, have mercy!"
The blacksmith, seeing nothing, also zealously prostrated himself on the floor.
"Get up!" a voice imperious and at the same time pleasant sounded above them. Some of the courtiers bustled about and nudged the Cossacks.
"We won't get up, mother! we won't! we'd rather die than get up!" the Cossacks cried.
Potemkin was biting his lips. Finally he went over himself and whispered commandingly to one of the Cossacks. They got up. Here the blacksmith also ventured to raise his head and saw standing before him a woman of small stature, even somewhat portly, powdered, with blue eyes, and with that majestically smiling air which knew so well how to make all obey and could belong only to a woman who reigns.
"His Highness promised to acquaint me today with one of my peoples whom I have not yet seen," the lady with the blue eyes said as she studied the Cossacks with curiosity. "Are you being kept well here?" she continued, coming nearer.
"Thank you, mother! The victuals are good, though the lamb hereabouts is not at all like in our Zaporozhye—but why not take what comes? . . ."
Potemkin winced, seeing that the Cossacks were saying something completely different from what he had taught them . . .One of the Cossacks, assuming an air of dignity, stepped forward:
"Have mercy, mother! Why would you ruin loyal people? How have we angered you?
Have we joined hands with the foul Tartar? Have we made any agreements with the Turk?
Have we betrayed you in deed or in thought? Why, then, the disgrace? First we heard that you had ordered fortresses built everywhere for protection against us; then we heard that you wanted to turn us into carabinieri10; now we hear of new calamities. In what is the Zaporozhye army at fault? that it brought your troops across the Perekop and helped your generals to cut down the Crimeans? . . ." 11
Potemkin kept silent and with a small brush casually cleaned the diamonds that studded his hands.
"What, then, do you want?" Catherine asked solicitously.
The Cossacks looked meaningly at one another.
"Now's the time! The tsaritsa is asking what we want!" the blacksmith said to himself and suddenly fell to the ground.
"Your Imperial Majesty, punish me not, but grant me mercy! Meaning no offense to Your Imperial Grace, but what are the booties you're wearing made of? I bet not one cobbler in any country of the world can make them like that. My God, if only my wife could wear such booties!"
The empress laughed. The courtiers also laughed. Potemkin frowned and smiled at the same time. The Cossacks began nudging the blacksmith's arm, thinking he had lost his mind.
"Get up!" the empress said benignly. "If you want so much to have such shoes, it's not hard to do. Bring him my most expensive shoes at once, the ones with gold! Truly, this simple-heartedness pleases me very much! Here," the empress went on, directing her eyes at a middle-aged man with a plump but somewhat pale face, who was standing further off than the others and whose modest caftan with big mother-of-pearl buttons showed that he did not belong to the number of the courtiers, "you have a subject worthy of your witty pen!" 12
"You are too gracious, Your Imperial Majesty. Here at least a La Fontaine13 is called for," the man with the mother-of-pearl buttons replied, bowing.
"I tell you in all honesty, I still love your Brigadier to distraction. You read remarkably well! However," the empress went on, turning to the Cossacks, "I've heard that in the Setch you never marry."
"How so, mother! You know yourself a man can't live without a wife," replied the same Cossack who had spoken with the blacksmith, and the blacksmith was surprised to hear this Cossack, who had such a good knowledge of literate language, talk with the tsaritsa as if on purpose in the coarsest way, usually called muzhik speech. "Clever folk!" he thought to himself. "He's surely doing it for a reason."
"We're not monks," the Cossack went on, "but sinful people. We fall for non-lenten things, as all honest Christendom does. Not a few among us have wives, though they don't live with them in the Setch. There are some who have wives in Poland; there are some who have wives in the Ukraine; there are even some who have wives in Turkey."
Just then the shoes were brought to the blacksmith.
"My God, what an adornment!" he cried joyfully, seizing the shoes. "Your Imperial Majesty! If the shoes on your feet are like this, and Your Honor probably even wears them to go ice skating, then how must the feet themselves be! I bet of pure sugar, at least!"
The empress, who did in fact have very shapely and lovely feet, could not help smiling at hearing such a compliment from the lips of a simple-hearted blacksmith, who, in his Zaporozhye outfit, could be considered a handsome fellow despite his swarthy complexion.
Gladdened by such favorable attention, the blacksmith was just going to question the tsaritsa properly about everything—was it true that tsars eat only honey and lard, and so on—but feeling the Cossacks nudging
him in the ribs, he decided to keep quiet. And when the empress, turning to the elders, began asking how they lived in the Setch and what their customs were, he stepped back, bent to his pocket, and said softly, "Get me out of here, quick!" and suddenly found himself beyond the toll gate.
"He drowned! by God, he drowned! May I never leave this spot if he didn't drown!" the weaver's fat wife babbled, standing in the middle of the street amidst a crowd of Dikanka women.
"What, am I some kind of liar? did I steal anybody's cow? did I put a spell on anybody, that you don't believe me?" shouted a woman in a Cossack blouse, with a violet nose, waving her arms. "May I never want to drink water again if old Pereperchikha didn't see the blacksmith hang himself with her own eyes!"
"The blacksmith hanged himself? just look at that!" said the headman, coming out of Choub's house, and he stopped and pushed closer to the talking women.
"Why not tell us you'll never drink vodka again, you old drunkard!" replied the weaver's wife. "A man would have to be as crazy as you are to hang himself! He drowned! drowned in a hole in the ice! I know it as well as I know you just left the tavern."
"The hussy! see what she reproaches me with!" the woman with the violet nose retorted angrily. "You'd better shut up, you jade! Don't I know that the deacon comes calling on you every evening?"
The weaver's wife flared up.
"The deacon what? Calls on whom? How you lie!"
"The deacon?" sang out the deacon's wife, in a rabbitskin coat covered with blue nankeen, pushing her way toward the quarreling women. "I'll show you a deacon! who said deacon?"
"It's her the deacon comes calling on!" said the woman with the violet nose, pointing at the weaver's wife.
"So it's you, you bitch!" said the deacon's wife, accosting the weaver's wife. "So it's you, you hellcat, who blow fog in his eyes and give him unclean potions to drink so as to make him come to you?
"Leave me alone, you she-devil!" the weaver's wife said, backing away.