are the thirteenth, be good enough just to step across the street to
my house, and let me twist your neck for you! it is by no means
painful.'
"'Waiter! my hat and stick,' said the Counsellor, pale as death, and
his voice escaped in mournful tones from his hollow chest. 'The devil
is in my house and seeks my soul; a pleasant evening to you,
gentlemen,' added he, turning to us with a polite bow, and thereupon
left the room.
"'What does this mean?' we asked each other; 'are we all beside
ourselves?'
"The gentleman in the morning-gown kept looking quietly out of the
window, while our good silly old friend crossed the street at his
usual formal pace. At the front-door, he pulled a huge bunch of keys
out of his pocket, unlocked the heavy creaking door--he of the
morning-gown looking carelessly on, and walked in.
"The latter now withdrew from the window, and we saw him go forward to
meet our acquaintance at the room-door.
"Our host and the ten waiters were all pale with fear, and trembled.
'Gentlemen,' said the former, 'God pity poor Hasentreffer, for one of
those two must be the devil in human shape.' We laughed at our host,
and tried to persuade ourselves that it was a joke of Barighi's; but
our host assured us that no one could have obtained access to the
house except he was in possession of the Counsellor's very
artificially contrived keys; also, that Barighi was seated at table
not ten minutes before the prodigy happened; how then could he have
disguised himself so completely in so short a time, even supposing him
to have known how to unlock a strange house? He added, that the two
were so fearfully like one another, that he who had lived in the
neighbourhood for twenty years could not distinguish the true one from
the counterfeit. 'But, for God's sake, gentlemen, do you not hear the
horrid shrieks opposite?'
"We rushed to the window--terrible and fearful voices rang across from
the empty house; we fancied we saw the old Counsellor, pursued by his
image in the morning-gown, hurry past the window repeatedly. On a
sudden all was quiet.
"We gazed on each other; the boldest among us proposed to cross over
to the house--we all agreed to it. We crossed the street--the huge
bell at the old man's door was rung thrice, but nothing could be heard
in answer; we sent to the police and to a blacksmith's--the door was
broken open, the whole tide of anxious visitors poured up the wide
silent staircase--all the doors were fastened; at length one was
opened. In a splendid apartment, the Counsellor, his iron-grey
frock-coat torn to pieces, his neatly dressed hair in horrible
disorder, lay dead, strangled, on the sofa.
"Since that time no traces of Barighi have been found, neither in
Stuttgart nor elsewhere."
ST. JOHN'S EVE[3]
BY NIKOLÁI VASILÉVICH GÓGOL
[3] From _St. John's Eve and Other Stories_, translated by
Isabel F. Hapgood from the Russian of N. V. Gógol.
(Copyright, 1886, by Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. By permission of
the Publishers.)
Thoma Grigorovich had a very strange sort of eccentricity: to the day
of his death, he never liked to tell the same thing twice. There were
times, when, if you asked him to relate a thing afresh, behold, he
would interpolate new matter, or alter it so that it was impossible to
recognize it. Once on a time, one of those gentlemen (it is hard for
us simple people to put a name to them, to say whether they are
scribblers, or not scribblers: but it is just the same thing as the
usurers at our yearly fairs; they clutch and beg and steal every sort
of frippery, and issue mean little volumes, no thicker than an A B C
book, every month, or even every week),--one of these gentlemen wormed
this same story out of Thoma Grigorovich, and he completely forgot
about it. But that same young gentleman in the pea-green caftan, whom
I have mentioned, and one of whose tales you have already read, I
think, came from Poltava, bringing with him a little book, and,
opening it in the middle, shows it to us. Thoma Grigorovich was on the
point of setting his spectacles astride of his nose, but recollected
that he had forgotten to wind thread about them, and stick them
together with wax, so he passed it over to me. As I understand
something about reading and writing, and do not wear spectacles, I
undertook to read it. I had not turned two leaves, when all at once he
caught me by the hand, and stopped me.
"Stop! tell me first what you are reading."
I confess that I was a trifle stunned by such a question.
"What! what am I reading, Thoma Grigorovich? These were your very
words."
"Who told you that they were my words?"
"Why, what more would you have? Here it is printed: _Related by such
and such a sacristan_."
"Spit on the head of the man who printed that! he lies, the dog of a
Moscow pedlar! Did I say that? _'Twas just the same as though one
hadn't his wits about him!_ Listen, I'll tell it to you on the spot."
We moved up to the table, and he began.
* * * * *
My grandfather (the kingdom of heaven be his! may he eat only wheaten
rolls and makovniki[4] with honey in the other world!) could tell a
story wonderfully well. When he used to begin on a tale, you wouldn't
stir from the spot all day, but keep on listening. He was no match for
the story-teller of the present day, when he begins to lie, with a
tongue as though he had had nothing to eat for three days, so that you
snatch your cap, and flee from the house. As I now recall it, my old
mother was alive then, in the long winter evenings when the frost was
crackling out of doors, and had so sealed up hermetically the narrow
panes of our cottage, she used to sit before the hackling-comb,
drawing out a long thread in her hand, rocking the cradle with her
foot, and humming a song, which I seem to hear even now.
[4] Poppy-seeds cooked in honey, and dried in square cakes.
The fat-lamp, quivering and flaring up as though in fear of something,
lighted us within our cottage; the spindle hummed; and all of us
children, collected in a cluster, listened to grandfather, who had not
crawled off the oven for more than five years, owing to his great age.
But the wondrous tales of the incursions of the Zaporozhian Cossacks,
the Poles, the bold deeds of Podkova, of Poltor-Kozhukh, and
Sagaidatchnii, did not interest us so much as the stories about some
deed of old which always sent a shiver through our frames, and made
our hair rise upright on our heads. Sometimes such terror took
possession of us in consequence of them, that, from that evening on,
Heaven knows what a marvel everything seemed to us. If you chanced to
go out of the cottage after nightfall for anything, you imagine that a
visitor from the other world has lain down to sleep in your bed; and I
should not be able to tell this a second time were it not that I had
often taken my own smock, at a distance, as it lay at the head of the
bed, for the Evil One rolled up in a ball! But the chief thing about
grandfather's stories was, that he never had lied in his life; and
whatever he said was so, was so.
I will now relate to you one of his marvellous tales. I know that
there are a great many wise people who copy in the courts, and can
even read civil documents, who, if you were to put into their hand a
simple prayer-book, could not make out the first letter in it, and
would show all their teeth in derision--which is wisdom. These people
laugh at everything you tell them. Such incredulity has spread abroad
in the world! What then? (Why, may God and the Holy Virgin cease to
love me if it is not possible that even you will not believe me!) Once
he said something about witches; ... What then? Along comes one of
these head-breakers,--and doesn't believe in witches! Yes, glory to
God that I have lived so long in the world! I have seen heretics, to
whom it would be easier to lie in confession than it would for our
brothers and equals to take snuff, and those people would deny the
existence of witches! But let them just dream about something, and
they won't even tell what it was! There's no use in talking about
them!
* * * * *
No one could have recognized this village of ours a little over a
hundred years ago: a hamlet it was, the poorest kind of a hamlet. Half
a score of miserable izbás, unplastered, badly thatched, were
scattered here and there about the fields. There was not an enclosure
or a decent shed to shelter animals or wagons. That was the way the
wealthy lived: and if you had looked for our brothers, the poor,--why,
a hole in the ground,--that was a cabin for you! Only by the smoke
could you tell that a God-created man lived there. You ask, why they
lived so? It was not entirely through poverty: almost every one led a
wandering, Cossack life, and gathered not a little plunder in foreign
lands; it was rather because there was no reason for setting up a
well-ordered khata[5]. How many people were wandering all over the
country,--Crimeans, Poles, Lithuanians! It was quite possible that
their own countrymen might make a descent, and plunder everything.
Anything was possible.
[5] Wooden house.
In this hamlet a man, or rather a devil in human form, often made his
appearance. Why he came, and whence, no one knew. He prowled about,
got drunk, and suddenly disappeared as if into the air, and there was
not a hint of his existence. Then, again, behold, and he seemed to
have dropped from the sky, and went flying about the street of the
village, of which no trace now remains, and which was not more than a
hundred paces from Dikanka. He would collect together all the Cossacks
he met; then there were songs, laughter, money in abundance, and vodka
flowed like water.... He would address the pretty girls, and give them
ribbons, earrings, strings of beads,--more than they knew what to do
with. It is true that the pretty girls rather hesitated about
accepting his presents: God knows, perhaps they had passed through
unclean hands. My grandfather's aunt, who kept a tavern at the time,
in which Basavriuk (as they called that devil-man) often had his
carouses, said that no consideration on the face of the earth would
have induced her to accept a gift from him. And then, again, how avoid
accepting? Fear seized on every one when he knit his bristly brows,
and gave a sidelong glance which might send your feet, God knows
whither: but if you accept, then the next night some fiend from the
swamp, with horns on his head, comes to call, and begins to squeeze
your neck, when there is a string of beads upon it; or bite your
finger, if there is a ring upon it; or drag you by the hair, if
ribbons are braided in it. God have mercy, then, on those who owned
such gifts! But here was the difficulty: it was impossible to get rid
of them; if you threw them into the water, the diabolical ring or
necklace would skim along the surface, and into your hand.
There was a church in the village,--St. Pantelei, if I remember
rightly. There lived there a priest, Father Athanasii of blessed
memory. Observing that Basavriuk did not come to Church, even on
Easter, he determined to reprove him, and impose penance upon him.
Well, he hardly escaped with his life. "Hark ye, pannotche!"[6] he
thundered in reply, "learn to mind your own business instead of
meddling in other people's, if you don't want that goat's throat of
yours stuck together with boiling kutya."[7] What was to be done with
this unrepentant man? Father Athanasii contented himself with
announcing that any one who should make the acquaintance of Basavriuk
would be counted a Catholic, an enemy of Christ's church, not a member
of the human race.
[6] Sir.
[7] A dish of rice or wheat flour, with honey and raisins,
which is brought to the church on the celebration of memorial
masses.
In this village there was a Cossack named Korzh, who had a labourer
whom people called Peter the Orphan--perhaps because no one remembered
either his father or mother. The church starost,[8] it is true, said
that they had died of the pest in his second year; but my
grandfather's aunt would not hear to that, and tried with all her
might to furnish him with parents, although poor Peter needed them
about as much as we need last year's snow. She said that his father
had been in Zaporozhe, taken prisoner by the Turks, underwent God only
knows what tortures, and having, by some miracle, disguised himself as
a eunuch, had made his escape. Little cared the black-browed youths
and maidens about his parents. They merely remarked, that if he only
had a new coat, a red sash, a black lambskin cap, with dandified blue
crown, on his head, a Turkish sabre hanging by his side, a whip in one
hand and a pipe with handsome mountings in the other, he would surpass
all the young men. But the pity was, that the only thing poor Peter
had was a grey svitka with more holes in it than there are gold pieces
in a Jew's pocket. And that was not the worst of it, but this: that
Korzh had a daughter, such a beauty as I think you can hardly have
chanced to see. My deceased grandfather's aunt used to say--and you
know that it is easier for a woman to kiss the Evil One than to call
anybody a beauty, without malice be it said--that this Cossack
maiden's cheeks were as plump and fresh as the pinkest poppy when just
bathed in God's dew, and, glowing, it unfolds its petals, and coquets
with the rising sun; that her brows were like black cords, such as our
maidens buy nowadays, for their crosses and ducats, of the Moscow
pedlars who visit the villages with their baskets, and evenly arched
as though peeping into her clear eyes; that her little mouth, at sight
of which the youth smacked their lips, seemed made to emit the songs
of nightingales; that her hair, black as the raven's wing, and soft as
young flax (our maidens did not then plait their hair in clubs
interwoven with pretty, bright-hued ribbons), fell in curls over her
kuntush.[9] Eh! may I never intone another alleluia in the choir, if I
would not have kissed her, in spite of the grey which is making its
way all through the old wool which covers my pate, and my old woman
beside me, like a thorn in my side! Well, you know what happens when
young men and maids live side by side. In the twilight the heels of
red boots were always visible in the place where Pidórka chatted with
her Petrus. But Korzh would never have suspected anything out of the
way, only one day--it is evident that none but the Evil One could have
inspired him--Petrus took it into his head to kiss the Cossack
maiden's rosy lips with all his heart in the passage, without first
looking well about him; and that same Evil One--may the son of a dog
dream of the holy cross!--caused the old greybeard, like a fool, to
open the cottage-door at that same moment. Korzh was petrified,
dropped his jaw, and clutched at the door for support. Those unlucky
kisses had completely stunned him. It surprised him more than the blow
of a pestle on the wall, with which, in our days, the muzhik generally
drives out his intoxication for lack of fusees and powder.
[8] Elder.
[9] Upper garment in Little Russia.
Recovering himself, he took his grandfather's hunting-whip from the
wall, and was about to belabour Peter's back with it, when Pidórka's
little six-year-old brother Ivas rushed up from somewhere or other,
and, grasping his father's legs with his little hands, screamed out,
"Daddy, daddy! don't beat Petrus!" What was to be done? A father's
heart is not made of stone. Hanging the whip again upon the wall, he
led him quietly from the house. "If you ever show yourself in my
cottage again, or even under the windows, look out, Petró! by Heaven,
your black moustache will disappear; and your black locks, though
wound twice about your ears, will take leave of your pate, or my name
is not Terentii Korzh." So saying, he gave him a little taste of his
fist in the nape of his neck, so that all grew dark before Petrus, and
he flew headlong. So there was an end of their kissing. Sorrow seized
upon our doves; and a rumour was rife in the village, that a certain
Pole, all embroidered with gold, with moustaches, sabre, spurs, and
pockets jingling like the bells of the bag with which our sacristan
Taras goes through the church every day, had begun to frequent Korzh's
house. Now, it is well known why the father is visited when there is a
black-browed daughter about. So, one day, Pidórka burst into tears,
and clutched the hand of her Ivas. "Ivas, my dear! Ivas, my love! fly
to Petrus, my child of gold, like an arrow from a bow. Tell him all: I
would have loved his brown eyes, I would have kissed his white face,
but my fate decrees not so. More than one towel have I wet with
burning tears. I am sad, I am heavy at heart. And my own father is my
enemy. I will not marry that Pole, whom I do not love. Tell him they
are preparing a wedding, but there will be no music at our wedding:
ecclesiastics will sing instead of pipes and kobzas.[10] I shall not
dance with my bridegroom: they will carry me out. Dark, dark will be
my dwelling,--of maple wood; and, instead of chimneys, a cross will
stand upon the roof."
[10] Eight-stringed musical instrument.
Petró stood petrified, without moving from the spot, when the innocent
child lisped out Pidórka's words to him. "And I, unhappy man, thought
to go to the Crimea and Turkey, win gold and return to thee, my
beauty! But it may not be. The evil eye has seen us. I will have a
wedding, too, dear little fish, I, too; but no ecclesiastics will be
at that wedding. The black crow will caw, instead of the pope, over
me; the smooth field will be my dwelling; the dark blue clouds my
roof-tree. The eagle will claw out my brown eyes: the rain will wash
the Cossack's bones, and the whirlwinds will dry them. But what am I?
Of whom, to whom, am I complaining? 'Tis plain, God willed it so. If I
am to be lost, then so be it!" and he went straight to the tavern.
My late grandfather's aunt was somewhat surprised on seeing Petrus in
the tavern, and at an hour when good men go to morning mass; and she
stared at him as though in a dream, when he demanded a jug of brandy,
about half a pailful. But the poor fellow tried in vain to drown his
woe. The vodka stung his tongue like nettles, and tasted more bitter
than wormwood. He flung the jug from him upon the ground. "You have
sorrowed enough, Cossack," growled a bass voice behind him. He looked
round--Basavriuk! Ugh, what a face! His hair was like a brush, his
eyes like those of a bull. "I know what you lack: here it is." Then
he jingled a leather purse which hung from his girdle, and smiled
diabolically. Petró shuddered. "He, he, he! yes, how it shines!" he
roared, shaking out ducats into his hand: "he, he, he! and how it
jingles! And I only ask one thing for a whole pile of such
shiners."--"It is the Evil One!" exclaimed Petró:--"Give them here! I
am ready for anything!" They struck hands upon it. "See here, Petró,
you are ripe just in time: tomorrow is St. John the Baptist's day.
Only on this one night in the year does the fern blossom. Delay not. I
will await thee at midnight in the Bear's ravine."
I do not believe that chickens await the hour when the woman brings
their corn, with as much anxiety as Petrus awaited the evening. And,
in fact, he looked to see whether the shadows of the trees were not
lengthening, if the sun were not turning red towards setting; and, the
longer he watched, the more impatient he grew. How long it was!
Evidently, God's day had lost its end somewhere. And now the sun is
gone. The sky is red only on one side, and it is already growing dark.
It grows colder in the fields. It gets dusky, and more dusky, and at
last quite dark. At last! With heart almost bursting from his bosom,
he set out on his way, and cautiously descended through the dense
woods into the deep hollow called the Bear's ravine. Basavriuk was
already waiting there. It was so dark, that you could not see a yard
before you. Hand in hand they penetrated the thin marsh, clinging to
the luxuriant thorn-bushes, and stumbling at almost every step. At
last they reached an open spot. Petró looked about him: he had never
chanced to come there before. Here Basavriuk halted.
"Do you see, before you stand three hillocks? There are a great many
sorts of flowers upon them. But may some power keep you from plucking
even one of them. But as soon as the fern blossoms, seize it, and look
not round, no matter what may seem to be going on behind thee."
Petró wanted to ask--and behold, he was no longer there. He approached
the three hillocks--where were the flowers? He saw nothing. The wild
steppe-grass darkled around, and stifled everything in its luxuriance.
But the lightning flashed; and before him stood a whole bed of
flowers, all wonderful, all strange: and there were also the simple
fronds of fern. Petró doubted his senses, and stood thoughtfully
before them, with both hands upon his sides.
"What prodigy is this? one can see these weeds ten times in a day:
what marvel is there about them? was not devil's-face laughing at me?"
Behold! the tiny flower-bud crimsons, and moves as though alive. It is
a marvel, in truth. It moves, and grows larger and larger, and flashes
like a burning coal. The tiny star flashes up, something bursts
softly, and the flower opens before his eyes like a flame, lighting
the others about it. "Now is the time," thought Petró, and extended
his hand. He sees hundreds of shaggy hands reach from behind him, also
for the flower; and there is a running about from place to place, in
the rear. He half shut his eyes, plucked sharply at the stalk, and the
flower remained in his hand. All became still. Upon a stump sat
Basavriuk, all blue like a corpse. He moved not so much as a finger.
His eyes were immovably fixed on something visible to him alone: his
mouth was half open and speechless. All about, nothing stirred. Ugh!
it was horrible!--But then a whistle was heard, which made Petró's
heart grow cold within him; and it seemed to him that the grass
whispered, and the flowers began to talk among themselves in delicate
voices, like little silver bells; the trees rustled in waving
contention;--Basavriuk's face suddenly became full of life and his
eyes sparkled. "The witch has just returned," he muttered between his
teeth. "See here, Petró: a beauty will stand before you in a moment;
do whatever she commands; if not--you are lost for ever." Then he
parted the thorn-bush with a knotty stick, and before him stood a tiny
izbá, on chicken's legs, as they say. Basavriuk smote it with his
fist, and the wall trembled. A large black dog ran out to meet them,
and with a whine, transforming itself into a cat, flew straight at his
eyes. "Don't be angry, don't be angry, you old Satan!" said Basavriuk,
employing such words as would have made a good man stop his ears.
Behold, instead of a cat, an old woman with a face wrinkled like a
baked apple, and all bent into a bow: her nose and chin were like a
pair of nut-crackers. "A stunning beauty!" thought Petró; and cold
chills ran down his back. The witch tore the flower from his hand,
bent over, and muttered over it for a long time, sprinkling it with
some kind of water. Sparks flew from her mouth, froth appeared on her
lips.
"Throw it away," she said, giving it back to Petró.
Petró threw it, and what wonder was this? the flower did not fall
straight to the earth, but for a long while twinkled like a fiery ball
through the darkness, and swam through the air like a boat: at last it
began to sink lower, and fell so far away, that the little star,
hardly larger than a poppy-seed, was barely visible. "Here!" croaked
the old woman, in a dull voice: and Basavriuk, giving him a spade,
said, "Dig here, Petró: here you will find more gold than you or Korzh
ever dreamed of."