The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol (8 page)

“It’s me, good man!
I’ve come to your windows to sing some carols for your amusement.”

“Go to the devil with your carols!” Vakula cried angrily.
“Why are you standing there?
Clear out right now, do you hear?”

Choub himself was already of that sensible intention; but he found it vexing to have to obey the blacksmith’s orders.
It seemed some evil spirit nudged his arm, forcing him to say something contrary.

“Really, why are you shouting so?” he said in the same voice.
“I want to sing carols, that’s all!”

“Oh-ho!
there’s no stopping you with words!…” Following these words, Choub felt a most painful blow to his shoulder.

“So, I see you’re already starting to fight!” he said, retreating a little.

“Away, away!” the blacksmith cried, awarding Choub another shove.

“What’s with you!” said Choub, in a voice that expressed pain, vexation, and timorousness.
“I see you fight seriously, and painfully, too!”

“Away, away with you!” the blacksmith shouted and slammed the door.

“What a brave one!” Choub said, left alone outside.
“Try going near him!
Just look at the big jackanapes!
You think I can’t get justice against you?
No, my dear, I’ll go, and go straight to the commissar.
You’ll learn about me!
I don’t care that you’re a blacksmith and a painter.
If I could see my back and shoulders, I suppose they’d be black and blue.
He must have beaten me badly, the devil’s son!
A pity it’s cold and I don’t want to take my coat off!
You wait, fiendish blacksmith, may the devil smash up you and your smithy, I’ll set you dancing!
So there, you cursed gallowsbird!
He’s not at home now, though.
I suppose Solokha is sitting there alone.
Hm … it’s not so far from here—why not go!
No one else would come in such weather.
Maybe it’ll be possible … Ohh, what a painful beating that cursed blacksmith gave me!”

Here Choub rubbed his back and set out in the other direction.
The pleasantness waiting ahead in the meeting with Solokha lessened the pain somewhat and made him insensible to the frost itself, which crackled in all the streets, not muffled by the blizzard’s whistling.
At times his face, on which the snowstorm soaped the beard and mustache more deftly than any barber tyrannically seizing his victim by the nose, acquired a half sweet look.
And yet, had it not been for the snow that criss-crossed everything before the eyes, you could long have seen Choub stopping, rubbing his back, saying, “A painful beating that cursed blacksmith gave me!” and moving on again.

W
HILE THE NIMBLE
fop with the tail and the goat’s beard was flying out of the chimney and back into it, the little pouch that hung on a strap at his side, in which he had put the stolen moon, somehow accidentally caught on something in the oven and came open, and the moon seized the opportunity and, flying out of the chimney of Solokha’s house, rose smoothly into the sky.
Everything lit up.
It was as if there had been no blizzard.
The snow gleamed in wide, silvery fields and was all sprinkled with crystal stars.
The frost seemed to grow warmer.
Crowds of lads and girls appeared with sacks.
Songs rang out, and it was a rare house that had no carolers crowding before it.

Wondrously the moon shines!
It’s hard to describe how good it is to jostle about on such a night with a bunch of laughing and singing girls and lads ready for every joke and prank that a merrily laughing night can inspire.
It’s warm under your thick sheepskin;
your cheeks burn still brighter with the frost; and the evil one himself pushes you into mischief from behind.

A crowd of girls with sacks barged into Choub’s house and surrounded Oksana.
Shouts, laughter, stories deafened the blacksmith.
Interrupting each other, they all hastened to tell the beauty some new thing, unloaded their sacks and boasted about the loaves, sausages, and dumplings, of which they had already collected plenty for their caroling.
Oksana seemed perfectly pleased and happy; she chatted, now with this girl, now with that, and laughed all the while.
With some vexation and envy the blacksmith looked on at their merriment, and this time he cursed caroling, though he used to lose his mind over it.

“Ah, Odarka!” the merry beauty said, turning to one of the girls, “you have new booties!
Oh, what pretty ones!
and with gold!
You’re lucky, Odarka, you have a man who buys everything for you; and I don’t have anyone to get me such nice booties.”

“Don’t grieve, my darling Oksana!” the blacksmith picked up.
“It’s a rare young lady who wears such booties as I’ll get for you.”

“You?” Oksana said, giving him a quick and haughty glance.
“I’d like to see where you’re going to get booties such as I could wear on my feet.
Unless you bring me the ones the tsaritsa wears.”

“See what she wants!” the crowd of girls shouted, laughing.

“Yes,” the beauty proudly continued, “you’ll all be witnesses: if the blacksmith Vakula brings me the very booties the tsaritsa wears, I give my word that I’ll marry him at once.”

The girls took the capricious beauty with them.

“Laugh, laugh!” said the blacksmith, following them out.
“I’m laughing at my own self!
I think, and can’t decide what’s become of my reason.
She doesn’t love me—so, God be with her!
As if Oksana’s the only one in the world.
Thank God, there are lots of nice girls in the village besides her.
And what is this Oksana?
She’d never make a good housewife; she’s only good at dressing herself up.
No, enough, it’s time to stop playing the fool.”

But just as the blacksmith was preparing to be resolute, some evil spirit carried before him the laughing image of Oksana, saying mockingly: “Get the tsaritsa’s booties for me, blacksmith, and I’ll
marry you!” Everything in him was stirred, and he could think of nothing but Oksana.

Crowds of carolers, the lads separately and the girls separately, hastened from one street to another.
But the blacksmith walked along without seeing anything or taking part in the merriment that he used to love more than anyone else.

T
HE DEVIL MEANWHILE
was indulging himself in earnest at Solokha’s: kissed her hand, mugging like an assessor at a priest’s daughter, pressed his hand to his heart, sighed, and said straight out that if she did not agree to satisfy his passions and reward him in the customary way, he was ready for anything: he’d throw himself in the water and send his soul straight to hellfire.
Solokha was not so cruel, and besides, the devil, as is known, acted in cahoots with her.
She did like seeing a crowd dangling after her, and she was rarely without company; however, she had thought she would spend that evening alone, because all the notable inhabitants of the village had been invited for kutya at the deacon’s.
But everything turned out otherwise: the devil had just presented his demand when suddenly the voice of the stalwart headman was heard.
Solokha ran to open the door, and the nimble devil got into one of the sacks lying there.

The headman, after shaking the snow off the earflaps of his hat and drinking the glass of vodka that Solokha handed him, said that he had not gone to the deacon’s on account of the blizzard, and seeing a light in her house, had stopped by, intending to spend the evening with her.

Before the headman finished speaking, there came a knocking at the door and the voice of the deacon.

“Hide me somewhere,” the headman whispered.
“I don’t want to meet the deacon right now.”

Solokha thought for a long time where to hide such a stout guest; she finally chose the biggest sack of coal; she dumped the coal into a barrel, and the stalwart headman got into it, mustache, head, earflaps, and all.

The deacon came in, grunting and rubbing his hands, and said
that none of his guests had come, and that he was heartily glad of this opportunity to
sport
a little at her place and the blizzard did not frighten him.
Here he came closer to her, coughed, smiled, touched her bare, plump arm with his long fingers, and uttered with an air that showed both slyness and self-satisfaction:

“And what have you got here, magnificent Solokha?” And having said it, he jumped back slightly.

“How—what?
An arm, Osip Nikiforovich!” replied Solokha.

“Hm!
an arm!
heh, heh, heh!” said the deacon, heartily pleased with his beginning, and he made a tour of the room.

“And what have you got here, dearest Solokha?” he uttered with the same air, having accosted her again and taken her lightly by the neck, and jumping back in the same way.

“As if you can’t see, Osip Nikiforovich!” replied Solokha.
“A neck, and on that neck a necklace.”

“Hm!
a necklace on the neck!
heh, heh, heh!” And the deacon made another tour of the room, rubbing his hands.

“And what have you got here, incomparable Solokha?…” Who knows what the deacon would have touched this time with his long fingers, but suddenly there came a knocking at the door and the voice of the Cossack Choub.

“Ah, my God, an extraneous person!” the frightened deacon cried.
“What now, if someone of my station is found here?… It’ll get back to Father Kondrat!…”

But the deacon’s real apprehensions were of another sort: he feared still more that his better half might find out, who even without that had turned his thick braid into a very thin one with her terrible hand.

“For God’s sake, virtuous Solokha,” he said, trembling all over.
“Your kindness, as it says in the Gospel of Luke, chapter thir—th— Knocking!
By God, there’s knocking!
Oh, hide me somewhere!”

Solokha poured the coal from another sack into the barrel, and the none-too-voluminous deacon got in and sat down at the bottom, so that another half sack of coal could have been poured on top of him.

“Good evening, Solokha!” said Choub, coming in.
“Maybe you
weren’t expecting me, eh?
it’s true you weren’t?
maybe I’m interfering with you?…” Choub went on, putting a cheerful and significant look on his face, which let it be known beforehand that his clumsy head was toiling in preparation for cracking some sharp and ingenious joke.
“Maybe you’ve been having fun here with somebody?… Maybe you’ve already hidden somebody away, eh?” And, delighted with this last remark, Choub laughed, inwardly triumphant that he alone enjoyed Solokha’s favors.
“Well, Solokha, now give me some vodka.
I think my throat got frozen in this cursed cold.
What a night before Christmas God has sent us!
When it struck, Solokha, do you hear, when it struck—eh, my hands are quite numb, I can’t unbutton my coat!—when the blizzard struck …”

“Open up!” a voice came from outside, accompanied by a shove at the door.

“Somebody’s knocking,” Choub said, breaking off.

“Open up!” the cry came, louder than before.

“It’s the blacksmith!” said Choub, clutching his earflaps.
“Listen, Solokha, put me wherever you like; not for anything in the world do I want to show myself to that cursed bastard, may the devil’s son get himself blisters as big as haystacks under each eye!”

Solokha, frightened, rushed about in panic and, forgetting herself, gestured for Choub to get into the same sack where the deacon was already sitting.
The poor deacon didn’t even dare to show his pain by coughing or grunting when the heavy fellow sat almost on his head and stuck his frozen boots on both sides of his temples.

The blacksmith came in without saying a word or taking off his hat and all but collapsed on the bench.
He was noticeably in very low spirits.

Just as Solokha was closing the door after him, someone knocked again.
This was the Cossack Sverbyguz.
This one could not be hidden in a sack, because it would have been impossible to find such a sack.
He was more corpulent than the headman and taller than Choub’s chum.
And so Solokha led him out to the kitchen garden to hear all that he had to tell her.

The blacksmith looked distractedly around the corners of the room, catching from time to time the far-resounding songs of the
carolers.
He finally rested his eyes on the sacks: “Why are these sacks lying here?
They should have been taken out long ago.
I’ve grown all befuddled on account of this stupid love.
Tomorrow’s a feast day, and there’s all this trash lying around the house.
I must take them to the smithy.”

Here the blacksmith crouched down by the huge sacks, tied them tightly, and was about to haul them onto his shoulders.
But it was obvious that his thoughts were wandering God knows where, otherwise he would have heard Choub hiss when his hair got caught by the rope that tied the sack and the stalwart headman begin to hiccup quite audibly.

“Can it be that this worthless Oksana will never get out of my head?” the blacksmith said.
“I don’t want to think about her, yet I do, and, as if on purpose, about nothing but her.
What makes the thought come into my head against my will?
Why the devil do these sacks seem heavier than before!
There must be something in them besides coal.
Fool that I am!
I forgot that everything seems heavier to me now.
Before, I used to be able to bend and unbend a copper coin or a horseshoe with one hand, and now I can’t lift a sack of coal.
Soon the wind will knock me down.
No,” he cried, cheering up after a pause, “what a woman I am!
I won’t let anybody laugh at me!
Let it even be ten sacks, I’ll lift them all.” And he briskly hauled sacks onto his shoulders that two strong men would have been unable to carry.
“This one, too,” he went on, picking up the small one, at the bottom of which the devil lay curled up.
“I think I put my tools in it.” Having said which, he left the house whistling the song:

No bothering with a wife for me.

Noisier and noisier sounded the songs and shouts in the streets.
The crowds of jostling folk were increased by those coming from neighboring villages.
The lads frolicked and horsed around freely.
Often amidst the carols one could hear some merry song made up on the spot by some young Cossack.
Then suddenly one of the crowd, instead of a carol, would roar a New Year’s song at the top of his lungs:

Humpling, mumpling!
Give me a dumpling
,
A big ring of sausage
,
A bowl full of porridge!