The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol

  "You cursed hellcat, may you never live to see your children! Pfui! . . ." and the deacon's wife spat straight into the weaver's wife's eyes.

  The weaver's wife wanted to respond in kind, but instead spat into the unshaven chin of the headman, who, in order to hear better, had edged right up to the quarreling women.

  "Agh, nasty woman!" cried the headman, wiping his face with the skirt of his coat and raising his whip. That gesture caused everyone to disband, cursing, in all directions. "What vileness!" he repeated, still wiping himself. "So the blacksmith is drowned! My God, and what a good painter he was! What strong knives, sickles, and plows he could forge! Such strength he had! Yes," he went on, pondering, "there are few such people in our village. That's why I noticed while I was still sitting in that cursed sack that the poor fellow was really in bad spirits. That's it for your blacksmith—he was, and now he's not! And I was just going to have my piebald mare shod! . . ."

  And, filled with such Christian thoughts, the headman slowly trudged home.

  Oksana was confused when the news reached her. She trusted little in Pereperchikha's eyes, or in women's talk; she knew that the blacksmith was too pious to dare destroy his soul.

  But what if he had left with the intention of never coming back to the village? There was hardly such a fine fellow as the blacksmith anywhere else! And he loved her so! He had put up with her caprices longest! All night under her blanket the beauty tossed from right to left, from left to right—and couldn't fall asleep. Now, sprawled in an enchanting nakedness which the dark of night concealed even from herself, she scolded herself almost aloud; then, calming down, she resolved not to think about anything—and went on thinking. And she was burning all over; and by morning she was head over heels in love with the blacksmith.

  Choub expressed neither joy nor grief at Vakula's lot. His thoughts were occupied with one thing: he was simply unable to forget Solokha's perfidy and, even in his sleep, never stopped abusing her.

  Morning came. Even before dawn the whole church was filled with people. Elderly women in white head scarves and white flannel blouses piously crossed themselves just at the entrance to the church. Ladies in green and yellow vests, and some even in dark blue jackets with gold curlicues behind, stood in front of them. Young girls with a whole mercer's shop of ribbons wound round their heads, and with beads, crosses, and coin necklaces on their necks, tried to make their way still closer to the iconostasis. 14 But in front of them all stood the squires and simple muzhiks with mustaches, topknots, thick necks, and freshly shaven chins, almost all of them in hooded flannel cloaks, from under which peeked here a white and there a blue blouse. All the faces, wherever you looked, had a festive air. The headman licked his chops, imagining himself breaking his fast with sausage; the young girls' thoughts were of going ice skating with the lads; the old women whispered their prayers more zealously than ever. You could hear the Cossack Sverbyguz's bowing all over the church. Only Oksana stood as if not herself: she prayed, and did not pray. There were so many different feelings crowding in her heart, one more vexing than another, one more rueful than another, that her face expressed nothing but great confusion; tears quivered in her eyes. The girls couldn't understand the reason for it and didn't suspect that the blacksmith was to blame. However, Oksana was not the only one concerned about the blacksmith. The parishioners all noticed that it was as if the feast was not a feast, as if something was lacking. As luck would have it, the deacon, after his journey in the sack, had grown hoarse and croaked in a barely audible voice; true, the visiting singer hit the bass notes nicely, but it would have been much better if the blacksmith had been there, who, whenever the "Our Father" or the "Cherubic Hymn" was sung, always went up to the choir and sang out from there in the same way they sing in Poltava. Besides, he was the one who did the duties of the church warden. Matins were already over; after matins, the liturgy . . . Where, indeed, had the blacksmith disappeared to?

  Still more swiftly in the remaining time of night did the devil race home with the blacksmith. Vakula instantly found himself by his cottage. Just then the cock crowed. "Hold on!" he cried, snatching the devil by the tail as he was about to run away. "Wait, friend, that's not all—I haven't thanked you yet." Here, seizing a switch, he measured him out three strokes, and the poor devil broke into a run, like a muzhik who has just been given a roasting by an assessor. And so, instead of deceiving, seducing, and duping others, the enemy of the human race was duped himself. After which, Vakula went into the front hall, burrowed under the hay, and slept until dinnertime. Waking up, he was frightened when he saw the sun already high. "I slept through matins and the liturgy!"—and the pious blacksmith sank into dejection, reasoning that God, as a punishment for his sinful intention of destroying his soul, must have sent him a sleep that kept him from going to church on such a solemn feast day. However, having calmed himself by deciding to confess it to the priest the next week and to start that same day making fifty bows a day for a whole year, he peeked into the cottage; but no one was home. Solokha must not have come back yet. He carefully took the shoes from his bosom and again marveled at the costly workmanship and the strange adventure of the past night; he washed, dressed the best he could, putting on the clothes he got from the Cossacks, took from his trunk a new hat of Reshetilovo astrakhan with a blue top, which he had not worn even once since he bought it while he was in Poltava; he also took out a new belt of all colors; he put it all into a handkerchief along with a whip and went straight to Choub.

  Choub goggled his eyes when the blacksmith came in, and didn't know which to marvel at: that the blacksmith had resurrected, or that the blacksmith had dared to come to him, or that he had got himself up so foppishly as a Zaporozhye Cossack. But he was still more amazed when Vakula untied the handkerchief and placed before him a brand-new hat and a belt such as had never been seen in the village, and himself fell at his feet and said in a pleading voice:

  "Have mercy, father! Don't be angry! Here's a whip for you: beat me as much as your soul desires, I give myself up; I repent of everything; beat me, only don't be angry! You were once bosom friends with my late father, you ate bread and salt together and drank each other's health."

  Choub, not without secret pleasure, beheld the blacksmith— who did not care a hoot about anyone in the village, who bent copper coins and horseshoes in his bare hands like buckwheat pancakes—this same blacksmith, lying at his feet. So as not to demean himself, Choub took the whip and struck him three times on the back.

  "Well, that's enough for you, get up! Always listen to your elders! Let's forget whatever was between us! So, tell me now, what do you want?"

  "Give me Oksana for my wife, father!"

  Choub thought a little, looked at the hat and belt; it was a wonderful hat and the belt was no worse; he remembered the perfidious Solokha and said resolutely:

  "Right-o! Send the matchmakers!"

  "Aie!" Oksana cried out, stepping across the threshold and seeing the blacksmith, and with amazement and joy she fastened her eyes on him.

  "Look, what booties I've brought you!" said Vakula, "the very ones the tsaritsa wears!"

  "No! no! I don't need any booties!" she said, waving her hands and not taking her eyes off him. "Even without the booties, I . . ." She blushed and did not say any more.

  The blacksmith went up to her and took her hand; the beauty looked down. Never yet had she been so wondrously pretty. The delighted blacksmith gently kissed her, her face flushed still more, and she became even prettier.

  A bishop of blessed memory was driving through Dikanka, praised the location of the village, and, driving down the street, stopped in front of a new cottage.

  "And to whom does this painted cottage belong?" His Reverence asked of the beautiful woman with a baby in her arms who was standing by the door.

  "To the blacksmith Vakula," said Oksana, bowing to him, for it was precisely she.

  "Fine! fine work!" said His Reverence, studying the doors and windows. The windows were all
outlined in red, and on the doors everywhere there were mounted Cossacks with pipes in their teeth.

  But His Reverence praised Vakula still more when he learned that he had undergone a church penance and had painted the entire left-hand choir green with red flowers free of charge. That, however, was not all: on the wall to the right as you entered the church, Vakula had painted a devil in hell, such a nasty one that everybody spat as they went by; and the women, if a child started crying in their arms, would carry it over to the picture and say, "See what a caca's painted there!" and the child, holding back its tears, would look askance at the picture and press against its mother's breast.

  THE TERRIBLE VENGEANCE

  I

  NOISE AND THUNDER at the end of Kiev: Captain Gorobets is celebrating his son's wedding.

  Many people have gathered as the captain's guests. In the old days people liked to eat well, better still did they like to drink, and better still did they like to make merry. On his bay steed came the Zaporozhets Mikitka, 1straight from a wild spree on the Pereshlai field, where he kept the Polish noblemen drunk on red wine for seven days and seven nights. There came also the captain's sworn brother, Danilo Burulbash, with his young wife, Katerina, and his one-year-old son, from the other shore of the Dnieper, where he had a farmstead between two hills. The guests marveled at Mistress Katerina's white face, her eyebrows black as German velvet, her fancy woolen dress and light blue silken shirt, her boots with silver-shod heels; but still more they marveled that her old father had not come with her. For one year only had he been living across the Dnieper, but for twenty-one he had vanished without a word and had returned to his daughter when she was already married and had borne a son. He surely could have told of many wonders. How could he not after having lived for so long in foreign lands! There everything is different: the people are not the same, and there are no churches of Christ. . . But he had not come.

  The guests were offered hot spiced vodka with raisins and plums and a round wedding loaf on a big platter. The musicians got to the bottom of it, where money had been baked in, and, quieting down for a while, laid aside their cymbals, violins, and tambourines. Meanwhile the young women and girls, wiping their lips with embroidered handkerchiefs, again stepped out from their rows; and the lads, arms akimbo, proudly looking about, were ready to rush to meet them—when the old captain brought out two icons to bless the young couple. These icons had come to him from an honorable monk, the elder Varfolomey. Their casings were not rich, they did not shine with silver or gold, but no unclean powers dared to touch anyone who had them in the house. Raising the icons aloft, the captain was about to say a short prayer . . .

  when the children who were playing on the ground suddenly cried out in fright; following them, the people backed away, and all pointed their fingers in fear at a Cossack who stood in their midst. Who he was, no one knew. But he had already done a fine Cossack dance and managed to make the crowd around him laugh. Yet when the captain raised the icons, his whole face suddenly changed: his nose grew and bent to one side, his eyes, green now instead of brown, leaped, his lips turned blue, his chin trembled and grew sharp as a spear, a fang shot from his mouth, a hump rose behind his head, and the Cossack was—an old man.

  "It's him! It's him!" people in the crowd cried, pressing close to each other.

  "The sorcerer has appeared again!" cried the mothers, snatching up their children.

  Majestically and dignifiedly the captain stepped forward and said in a loud voice, setting the icons against him:

  "Vanish, image of Satan, there is no place for you here!" And, hissing and snapping his teeth like a wolf, the strange old man vanished.

  There arose, arose noisily, like the sea in bad weather, a murmuring and talking among the folk.

  "What is this sorcerer?" asked the young and unseasoned people.

  "There'll be trouble!" said the old ones, wagging their heads.

  And everywhere, all over the captain's wide yard, they began gathering in clusters and listening to stories about the strange sorcerer. But they almost all said different things, and no one could tell anything for certain about him.

  A barrel of mead was rolled out into the yard, and not a few buckets of Greek wine were brought. All became merry again. The musicians struck up; the girls, the young women, the dashing Cossacks in bright jackets broke into a dance. Ninety- and hundred-year-olds got tipsy and also started to dance, recalling the years that had not vanished in vain. They feasted till late into the night, and they feasted as no one feasts any longer. The guests began to disperse, but few went home: many stayed the night in the captain's wide yard; still more Cossacks fell asleep, uninvited, under the benches, on the floor, by their horses, near the barn; wherever a drunken Cossack head staggered to, there he lay and snored for all Kiev to hear.

  II

  IT SHONE QUIETLY over all the world: the moon rose from behind the hill. It covered the hilly bank of the Dnieper as with precious, snow-white damask muslin, and the shade sank still deeper into the pine thicket.

  In the middle of the Dnieper floated a boat. Two lads sat in the bow, their black Cossack hats cocked, and the spray from under their oars flew in all directions like sparks from a tinderbox.

  Why are the Cossacks not singing? They do not talk of ksiedzy 2 going all over the Ukraine rebaptising people as Catholics; nor of the two-day battle with the Horde at the Salt Lake. 3

  How can they sing, how can they talk of daring deeds: their master Danilo has fallen into thought, and the sleeve of his red flannel jacket, hanging out of the boat, trails in the water; their mistress Katerina quietly rocks the baby without taking her eyes off him, and a gray dust of water sprays over the linen covering her fancy dress.

  Fair is the sight from the midst of the Dnieper of the high hills, the broad meadows, and the green forest! Those hills are not hills: they have no foot; they are sharp-peaked at both bottom and top; under them and over them is the tall sky. Those woods standing on the slopes are not woods; they are hair growing on the shaggy head of the old man of the forest. Under it his beard washes in the water, and under his beard and over his hair—the tall sky. Those meadows are not meadows: they are a green belt tied in the middle of the round sky, and the moon strolls about in both the upper and the lower half.

  Master Danilo looks to neither side, he looks at his young wife.

  "What is it, my young wife, my golden Katerina, have you fallen into sadness?"

  "I have not fallen into sadness, my master Danilo! I am frightened by the strange stories about the sorcerer. They say he was born so frightful. . . and from an early age no child wanted to play with him. Listen, Master Danilo, to what frightening things they say: as if he always imagined that everyone was laughing at him. He would meet some man on a dark evening, and at once it would seem to him that he had opened his mouth and bared his teeth. And the next day the man would be found dead. I felt strange, I felt frightened when I heard these stories," said Katerina, taking out a handkerchief and wiping the face of the baby asleep in her arms. She had embroidered the handkerchief with red silk leaves and berries.

  Master Danilo said not a word and began looking to the dark side, where far beyond the forest an earthen rampart blackened and an old castle rose from behind the rampart. Three wrinkles all at once creased his brow; his left hand stroked his gallant mustache.

  "It is not so frightening that he is a sorcerer," he said, "as that he is an evil guest. Why this whim of dragging himself here? I've heard that the Polacks want to build some sort of fortress to cut off our way to the Zaporozhye. Only let it be true . . . I'll scatter the devil's nest if I hear so much as a rumor that he has any sort of den there. I'll burn the old sorcerer so that the crows have nothing to peck at. Besides, I think he has no lack of gold and other goods. Here is where the devil lives. If he has gold . . . Now we're going to pass the crosses—it's the cemetery! Here his unclean forebears rot. They say they were all ready to sell themselves to Satan, souls and tattered jackets, for mon
ey. If indeed he has gold, there's no point in delaying now: war can't always bring . . ."

  "I know what you are plotting. No good does the encounter with him promise me. But you are breathing so hard, you look so stern, your eyes are so grim under their scowling brows!. . ."

  "Silence, woman!" Danilo said angrily. "Whoever deals with you becomes a woman himself. Lad, give me a light for my pipe!" Here he turned to one of the oarsmen, who knocked hot ashes from his pipe and transferred them to his master's pipe. "Frightening me with a sorcerer!" Master Danilo went on. "A Cossack, thank God, fears neither devils nor ksiedzy.

  Much good there'd be if we started listening to our wives. Right, lads? Our wife is a pipe and a sharp saber!"

  Katerina fell silent, looking down into the slumbering water; and the wind sent ripples over the water, and the whole Dnieper silvered like a wolf's fur in the night.

  The boat swung and began to hug the wooded bank. On the bank a cemetery could be seen: decrepit crosses crowded together. Guelder rose does not grow among them, there is no green grass, only the moon warms them from its heavenly height.

  "Do you hear cries, my lads? Someone's calling us for help!" said Master Danilo, turning to his oarsmen.

  "We hear the cries, and they seem to come from that direction," the lads said together, pointing to the cemetery.

  But all grew still. The boat swung and began to round the jutting bank. Suddenly the oarsmen lowered their oars and stared fixedly. Master Danilo also stopped: fear and chill cut into their Cossack fibers.

  The cross on one tomb swayed and out of it quietly rose a withered dead man. Beard down to his waist; claws on his fingers, long, longer than the fingers themselves. Quietly he raised his arms. His whole face twisted and trembled. He obviously suffered terrible torment.

  "I can't breathe! I can't breathe!" he moaned in a wild, inhuman voice. Like a knife blade his voice scraped at the heart, and the dead man suddenly sank under the ground. Another cross swayed, and again a dead man came out, still taller, still more terrible than the first; all overgrown, beard down to his knees, and still longer, bony nails. Still more wildly he cried: "I can't breathe!" and sank under the ground. A third cross swayed, a third dead man rose. It seemed as if nothing but bones rose high over the ground. Beard down to his very heels; fingers with long claws stuck into the ground. Terribly he stretched his arms upwards, as if trying to reach the moon, and cried out as if someone were sawing at his yellow bones. . .