The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol (9 page)

Loud laughter would reward the funny man.
A little window would be raised, and the lean arm of an old woman—they were the only ones to stay inside now with the grave fathers—would reach out with a sausage or a piece of pie.
Lads and girls held up their sacks, trying to be the first to catch the booty.
In one spot the lads came from all sides and surrounded a group of girls: noise, shouts, one threw a snowball, another grabbed a sack with all sorts of things in it.
Elsewhere the girls caught a lad, tripped him and sent him flying headlong to the ground together with his sack.
It seemed they were ready to make merry all night long.
And the night, as if on purpose, glowed so luxuriantly!
And the glistening snow made the moonlight seem whiter still.

The blacksmith stopped with his sacks.
He imagined he heard Oksana’s voice and thin laughter in the crowd of girls.
Every fiber of him twitched: flinging the sacks to the ground so that the deacon on the bottom groaned with pain and the headman hiccuped with his whole gullet, he trudged on, the small sack on his shoulder, with the crowd of lads that was following the crowd of girls in which he thought he had heard Oksana’s voice.

“Yes, it’s she!
standing like a tsaritsa, her black eyes shining!
A handsome lad is telling her something; it must be funny, because she’s laughing.
But she’s always laughing.” As if inadvertently, himself not knowing how, the blacksmith pushed through the crowd and stood next to her.

“Ah, Vakula, you’re here!
Good evening!” said the beauty with the very smile that all but drove Vakula out of his mind.
“Well, did you get a lot for your caroling?
Eh, such a little sack!
And the booties that the tsaritsa wears, did you get them?
Get me the booties and I’ll marry you!” She laughed and ran off with the crowd.

The blacksmith stood as if rooted to the spot.
“No, I can’t; it’s more than I can bear …” he said at last.
“But, my God, why is she so devilishly pretty?
Her eyes, and her speech, and everything—it
just burns me, burns me … No, I can’t stand it anymore!
It’s time to put an end to it all: perish my soul, I’ll go and drown myself in a hole in the ice and pass out of the picture!”

Here, with a resolute step, he went on, caught up with the crowd, came abreast of Oksana, and said in a firm voice:

“Farewell, Oksana!
Seek whatever suitor you like, fool whomever you like; but you won’t see any more of me in this world.”

The beauty looked surprised, wanted to say something, but the blacksmith waved his hand and ran away.

“Where to, Vakula?” called the lads, seeing the blacksmith running.

“Farewell, brothers!” the blacksmith called out in reply.
“God willing, we’ll see each other in the next world; but we’re not to carouse together anymore in this one.
Farewell, don’t remember any evil of me!
Tell Father Kondrat to serve a panikhida
⁴
for my sinful soul.
I didn’t paint the candles for the icons of Saint Nicholas and the Mother of God, it’s my fault, I got busy with worldly things.
Whatever goods you find in my chest, they all go to the church!
Farewell!”

After saying which, the blacksmith went off at a run with the sack on his back.

“He’s cracked in the head!” said the lads.

“A lost soul!” an old woman passing by mumbled piously.
“I’ll go and tell them the blacksmith has hanged himself!”

M
EANWHILE
V
AKULA, HAVING
run through several streets, stopped to catch his breath.
“Where am I running, in fact?” he thought, “as if all is lost.
I’ll try one more way: I’ll go to Paunchy Patsiuk, the Zaporozhets.
⁵
They say he knows all the devils and can do whatever he likes.
I’ll go, my soul will perish anyway!”

At that the devil, who had lain for a long time without moving, leaped for joy inside the sack; but the blacksmith, supposing he’d caused this movement by somehow catching the sack with his arm, punched it with his hefty fist, gave it a toss on his shoulder, and went off to Paunchy Patsiuk.

This Paunchy Patsiuk had indeed been a Zaporozhets once; but whether he had been driven out of the Zaporozhye or had run
away on his own, no one knew.
He had been living in Dikanka for a long time—ten years, maybe fifteen.
At first he had lived like a real Zaporozhets: didn’t work, slept three-quarters of the day, ate like six mowers, and drank nearly a whole bucket at one gulp; there was room enough for it all, however, because Patsiuk, though short, was of quite stout girth.
Besides, the balloon trousers he wore were so wide that, however long a stride he took, his legs were completely invisible, and it looked as though a wine barrel was moving down the street.
Maybe that was why they nicknamed him “Paunchy.” A few days after his arrival in the village, everybody already knew he was a wizard.
If anyone was sick with something, he at once called in Patsiuk; and Patsiuk had only to whisper a few words and it was as if the illness was taken away.
If it happened that a hungry squire got a fish bone caught in his throat, Patsiuk could hit him in the back with his fist so skillfully that the bone would go where it belonged without causing any harm to the squire’s throat.
Of late he had rarely been seen anywhere.
The reason for that was laziness, perhaps, or else the fact that it was becoming more difficult each year for him to get through the door.
So people had to go to him themselves if they had need of him.

The blacksmith opened the door, not without timidity, and saw Patsiuk sitting on the floor Turkish fashion before a small barrel with a bowl of noodles standing on it.
This bowl was placed, as if on purpose, at the level of his mouth.
Without lifting a finger, he bent his head slightly to the bowl and sipped up the liquid, occasionally catching noodles in his teeth.

“No,” Vakula thought to himself, “this one’s lazier than Choub: he at least eats with a spoon, but this one won’t even lift his arm!”

Patsiuk must have been greatly occupied with his noodles, because he seemed not to notice at all the coming of the blacksmith, who, as he stepped across the threshold, gave him a very low bow.

“I’ve come for your kindness, Patsiuk,” Vakula said, bowing again.

Fat Patsiuk raised his head and again began slurping up noodles.

“They say, meaning no offense …” the blacksmith said, plucking
up his courage, “I mention it not so as to insult you in any way—that you have some kinship with the devil.”

Having uttered these words, Vakula became frightened, thinking he had expressed himself too directly and hadn’t softened his strong words enough, and, expecting Patsiuk to seize the barrel with the bowl and send it straight at his head, he stepped aside a little and shielded himself with his sleeve, so that the hot liquid from the noodles wouldn’t splash in his face.

But Patsiuk shot him a glance and again began slurping up noodles.
The heartened blacksmith ventured to continue.

“I’ve come to you, Patsiuk, may God grant you all good things in abundance, and bread proportionately!” The blacksmith knew how to put in a fashionable word now and then; he had acquired the knack in Poltava, while he was painting the chief’s wooden fence.
“My sinful self is bound to perish!
nothing in the world helps!
Come what may, I must ask for help from the devil himself.
Well, Patsiuk?” said the blacksmith, seeing his invariable silence, “what am I to do?”

“If it’s the devil you need, then go to the devil!” replied Patsiuk, without raising his eyes and continuing to pack away the noodles.

“That’s why I came to you,” replied the blacksmith, giving him a low bow.
“Apart from you, I don’t think anybody in the world knows the way to him.”

Not a word from Patsiuk, who was finishing the last of the noodles.

“Do me a kindness, good man, don’t refuse!” the blacksmith insisted.
“Some pork, or sausage, or buckwheat flour—well, or linen, millet, whatever there may be, if needed … as is customary among good people … we won’t be stingy.
Tell me at least, let’s say, how to find the way to him?”

“He needn’t go far who has the devil on his back,” Patsiuk pronounced indifferently, without changing his position.

Vakula fixed his eyes on him as if he had the explanation of these words written on his forehead.
“What is he saying?” his face inquired wordlessly; and his half-open mouth was ready to swallow the first word like a noodle.
But Patsiuk kept silent.

Here Vakula noticed there were no longer either noodles or
barrel before the man; instead, two wooden bowls stood on the floor, one filled with dumplings, the other with sour cream.
His thoughts and eyes involuntarily turned to these dishes.
“Let’s see how Patsiuk is going to eat those dumplings,” he said to himself.
“He surely won’t want to lean over and slurp them up like noodles, and it’s not the right way—a dumpling has to be dipped in sour cream first.”

No sooner had he thought it than Patsiuk opened his mouth wide, looked at the dumplings, and opened his mouth still wider.
Just then a dumpling flipped out of the bowl, plopped into the sour cream, turned over on the other side, jumped up, and went straight into Patsiuk’s mouth.
Patsiuk ate it and again opened his mouth, and in went another dumpling in the same way.
He was left only with the work of chewing and swallowing.

“See what a marvel!” thought the blacksmith, opening his mouth in surprise, and noticing straightaway that a dumpling was going into his mouth as well and had already smeared his lips with sour cream.
Pushing the dumpling away and wiping his lips, the blacksmith began to reflect on what wonders happen in the world and what clever things a man could attain to by means of the unclean powers, observing at the same time that Patsiuk alone could help him.
“I’ll bow to him again, and let him explain it to me … Though, what the devil!
today is a
hungry
kutya,
⁶
and he eats dumplings, non-lenten dumplings!
What a fool I am, really, standing here and heaping up sins!
Retreat!…” And the pious blacksmith rushed headlong from the cottage.

However, the devil, who had been sitting in the sack and rejoicing in anticipation, couldn’t stand to see such a fine prize slip through his fingers.
As soon as the blacksmith put the sack down, he jumped out and sat astride his neck.

A chill crept over the blacksmith; frightened and pale, he did not know what to do; he was just about to cross himself … But the devil, leaning his doggy muzzle to his right ear, said:

“It’s me, your friend—I’ll do anything for a friend and comrade!
I’ll give you as much money as you like,” he squealed into his left ear.
“Oksana will be ours today,” he whispered, poking his muzzle toward his right ear again.

The blacksmith stood pondering.

“Very well,” he said finally, “for that price I’m ready to be yours!”

The devil clasped his hands and began bouncing for joy on the blacksmith’s neck.
“Now I’ve got you, blacksmith!” he thought to himself.
“Now I’ll take revenge on you, my sweet fellow, for all your paintings and tall tales against devils!
What will my comrades say now, when they find out that the most pious man in the whole village is in my hands?” Here the devil laughed with joy, thinking how he was going to mock all the tailed race in hell, and how furious the lame devil would be, reputed the foremost contriver among them.

“Well, Vakula!” the devil squealed, still sitting on his neck, as if fearing he might run away, “you know, nothing is done without a contract.”

“I’m ready!” said the blacksmith.
“With you, I’ve heard, one has to sign in blood; wait, I’ll get a nail from my pocket!” Here he put his arm behind him and seized the devil by the tail.

“See what a joker!” the devil cried out, laughing.
“Well, enough now, enough of these pranks!”

“Wait, my sweet fellow!” cried the blacksmith, “and how will you like this?” With these words he made the sign of the cross and the devil became as meek as a lamb.
“Just wait,” he said, dragging him down by the tail, “I’ll teach you to set good people and honest Christians to sinning!” Here the blacksmith, without letting go of the tail, jumped astride him and raised his hand to make the sign of the cross.

“Have mercy, Vakula!” the devil moaned pitifully.
“I’ll do anything you want, anything, only leave my soul in peace—don’t put the terrible cross on me!”

“Ah, so that’s the tune you sing now, you cursed German!
Now I know what to do.
Take me on your back this minute, do you hear?
Carry me like a bird!”

“Where to?” said the rueful devil.

“To Petersburg, straight to the tsaritsa!”

And the blacksmith went numb with fear, feeling himself rising into the air.

• • •

F
OR A LONG
time Oksana stood pondering the blacksmith’s strange words.
Something inside her was already telling her she had treated him too cruelly.
What if he had indeed decided on something terrible?
“Who knows, maybe in his sorrow he’ll make up his mind to fall in love with another girl and out of vexation call her the first beauty of the village?
But, no, he loves me.
I’m so pretty!
He wouldn’t trade me for anyone; he’s joking, pretending.
Before ten minutes go by, he’ll surely come to look at me.
I really am too stern.
I must let him kiss me, as if reluctantly.
It will make him so happy!” And the frivolous beauty was already joking with her girlfriends.

“Wait,” said one of them, “the blacksmith forgot his sacks.
Look, what frightful sacks!
He doesn’t go caroling as we do: I think he’s got whole quarters of lamb thrown in there; and sausages and loaves of bread probably beyond count.
Magnificent!
We can eat as much as we want all through the feast days.”

“Are those the blacksmith’s sacks?” Oksana picked up.
“Let’s quickly take them to my house and have a better look at what he’s stuffed into them.”

Everyone laughingly accepted this suggestion.

“But we can’t lift them!” the whole crowd suddenly cried, straining to move the sacks.