The miller reached his mill. It was all drenched with dew; the moon was
shining, the wood was shimmering, and a bittern, that foul bird, was
awake and booming in the reeds, sleepless, as if it were waiting for
some one, as if it were calling up some one out of the pond.
Dread fell upon Philip the miller.
“Hey! Gavrilo!” he shouted.
“Oo-oo, oo-oo!” answered the bittern from the marsh, but not a squeak
came from the mill.
“Oh, the confounded scapegrace! He’s run off after the girls again.”
So thought the miller, and somehow did not feel like going alone into
the empty mill. Although he was used to it, he sometimes remembered
that not only fish but adders were to be found swimming about among the
piles in the dark water under the floor.
He looked in the direction of the city. The night was warm and bright;
a light mist was circling over the river that flowed through the woods,
lost in the shimmering murk. There was not a cloud in the sky.
The miller looked behind him, and wondered afresh at the depth of his
pond that found room in its bosom for the moon and the stars and the
whole of the dark blue sky.
As he gazed at the pond, he saw in the water something resembling a
gnat flying across the stars. He looked more closely, and saw the gnat
grow to the size of a fly, and the fly to a sparrow, and the sparrow to
a crow, and the crow to a hawk.
“Well, I’ll be damned!” cried the miller, and, raising his eyes, he saw
something flying not through the water but through the air, and making
straight for the mill.
“The Lord preserve us! There’s Khapun again hurrying to the city after
his prey. Look at him, the unholy brute, how late he is this time! It’s
past midnight already, and he’s just starting out.”
While the miller was standing there staring up at the sky, the cloud,
which was now as large as an eagle, circled over the mill and began to
descend. Out of it came a humming sound like out of a huge swarm of
bees that has left its hive and is hovering over a garden.
“What! Is he going to rest on my dam again?” thought the miller. “What
a habit he makes of it now! Wait a bit, mister! I’ll put up a cross
there next year, and then you won’t come stopping at my dam on your
journey like a gentleman at an inn. But what is he making that noise
for, like those rattling kites children fly? I must hide under the
sycamores again, and see what he’s going to do next.”
But before he had had time to reach the trees, the miller looked up and
nearly shrieked aloud with terror. He saw his guest hovering right over
the mill holding--what? You will never guess what the devil held in his
clutches.
It was Yankel the Jew! Yes, he had brought back the selfsame Yankel
whom he had carried away the year before. He was holding him tight by
the back, and in Yankel’s hands was a huge bundle tied up in a sheet.
The devil and Yankel were abusing one another in the air, and making as
much fuss as ten Jews in a bazaar squabbling over one peasant.
The devil dropped on to the dam like a stone. If it hadn’t been for
his soft bundle every bone in Yankel’s body would certainly have been
broken to pieces. As soon as they touched the ground both jumped to
their feet and went at it again, hammer and tongs.
“Oi, oi! What a dirty, foul trick!” screamed Yankel. “Couldn’t you have
let me down more gently? I suppose you knew you had a living man in
your claws?”
“I wish you and your bundle had gone right through the earth!”
“Pooh! What harm does my little bundle do you? You don’t have to carry
it.”
“Your _little_ bundle indeed! A whole mountain of trash! I have only
just managed to drag you back. Oo-ff! There was nothing about this in
our contract.”
“But when has it ever been known that a man went on a journey without
any baggage? If you carry a man you must carry his things too;
that’s understood without any contract. I see! You’ve been trying to
cheat poor Yankel the Jew from the very start, and that’s why you’re
quarrelling now!”
“Huh! Any one who tried to cheat you, you old fox, wouldn’t live three
days! I’m precious sorry I ever agreed to anything!”
“And do you think I am perfectly delighted to have made your
acquaintance? Oi, vei! You’d better tell me yourself what our contract
was. But you may have forgotten it, so I’ll remind you. We made a bet.
Perhaps you will say we didn’t make a bet? That would be a nice trick!”
“Who said we didn’t make a bet? Did I say we didn’t?”
“And how could you say we didn’t, when we made it right here in this
very place? Perhaps you don’t remember what the bet was, as I do. You
said: Jews are usurers, Jews sell the people vodka, Jews have pity on
their own people but on no one else; that’s why every one wishes them
to the devil. Of course, perhaps you didn’t say that, and perhaps I
didn’t say in answer: there stands a miller behind that very sycamore
tree who, if he had any pity for Jews, would shout to you now and say:
‘Drop him, Mr. Devil; he has a wife, he has children!’ But he won’t do
it. That was number one!”
“How could the wretch have guessed that?” thought the miller; but the
devil said:
“Very well; number one!”
“And then I said--don’t you remember?--I said: as soon as I’ve gone
the miller will open a tavern and will begin selling diluted vodka. He
lends money already at a fine rate of interest. That was number two!”
“All right; number two!” the devil agreed, but the miller scratched his
head and thought:
“How could the infernal brute have guessed all that?”
“And I went on to say that, as a matter of fact, Christians did wish
us to the devil. But do you think, said I, that if one of us Jews were
here now and saw what you want to do to me he wouldn’t raise a fine
riot? But every one you ask will say of the miller in a year: the devil
fly away with him! That was number three!”
“All right; number three. I don’t deny it.”
“And a fine business it would be if you did deny it! What sort of an
honest Hebrew devil would you be after that? Tell me now what you
agreed to do on your part.”
“I have done all I agreed. I have left you alive for a year; number
one. I have brought you back here; number two----”
“And what about number three? What are you going to do about that?”
“What do you think I’m going to do? If you win the bet I’ll let you go
scot free.”
“And my losses? Don’t you know that you owe me for my losses?”
“Losses? What losses can you have had when we allowed you to do
business with us for a whole year without paying a license? You
wouldn’t have made as much profit in three years on earth. Just think
for yourself: I carried you off in your shirt without even a pair of
shoes to your feet, and look what a big bundle you’ve brought back!
Where did you get it from if you made nothing but losses?”
“Oi, vei! There you are scolding me about my bundle again! Whatever I
made there by trading is my own business. Did you count my profits? I
tell you I made nothing but losses out of my dealings with you, besides
losing a year here on earth.”
“Oh, you swindler you!” shouted the devil.
“I a swindler? No, you’re a swindler yourself, you thief, you liar, you
scab!”
And they began again to wrangle so violently that their words became
quite unintelligible. They waved their arms, their skull-caps quivered,
and they stood up on tip-toe like two cocks preparing to fight. The
devil was the first to regain control of himself.
“But we don’t yet know who has won the bet! It is true that the miller
didn’t take pity on you, but we haven’t decided the other points yet.
We haven’t asked the people whether he opened a tavern or not.”
“I have opened two!” the miller thought, scratching his head again.
“Oh, why didn’t I wait a year? Then Yankel would have been sent to the
devil for good, but now something disagreeable may come of it.”
He looked round at his mill. Couldn’t he possibly slip away to the
village by crawling behind it? But just as he was contemplating this
move, the sound of muttering and of uncertain footsteps came to his
ears from the wood. Yankel threw his bundle over his shoulder, and
ran to the very sycamore tree where the miller was hiding. The miller
hardly had time to slip behind a big willow tree before the devil
and Yankel were both under the sycamore, and at that moment Gavrilo
appeared at the far end of the dam. Gavrilo’s coat was in tatters and
was hanging off one shoulder; his hat was on one side of his head, and
his bare feet were continually quarrelling with one another. If one
wanted to go to the right, the other, out of contrariness, tried to go
to the left. One pulled one way and the other the other, until the poor
man’s head and feet nearly flew off in opposite directions. So the poor
lad staggered along, weaving patterns all across the dam from one side
to the other, but not progressing forward very fast.
The devil saw that Gavrilo was full, so he came out and stood in the
middle of the dam just as he was. Why the devil need any one stand on
ceremony with a drunkard?
“Good evening, good fellow!” he called. “Where did you get so full?”
As he said this, the miller noticed for the first time how miserable
and ragged Gavrilo had grown during the last year. And it was all
because he drank up at his master’s tavern everything that he earned
from his master. It was long since he had seen any money; he took it
all out in vodka.
The workman walked right up to the devil, saying:
“Whoa there! What has come over these devilish feet of mine? When I
want them to walk, they stop; when they see any one standing under my
very nose, they rush on ahead. Who are you?”
“With your permission, I am the devil.”
“Wha-at? I believe you’re lying. Well, I never! But perhaps you are
right after all! There are your horns and your tail, just as they ought
to be. But why do you wear ringlets hanging down your cheeks?”
“To tell you the truth, I’m the Hebrew devil.”
“Aha! There’s a marvel for you! If I were to tell people I had seen
your honour no one would believe me. Wasn’t it you who carried off our
Yankel last year?”
“Yes, it was I.”
“And whom are you after now? Not me? If you are, I swear I’ll yell.
Yes, I’ll yell like mad. You don’t know what a voice I have.”
“Come, don’t scream for nothing, good fellow. What good would you be to
me?”
“Then perhaps it’s the miller you want? If you’d like me to call him, I
will. But no, wait a bit. Who would be our inn-keeper if you took him
away?”
“Does he keep an inn?”
“Does he? He keeps two: one in the village and one by the side of the
road.”
“Ha! ha! ha! And is that why you would be sorry to lose the miller?”
“Oi, what a loud laugh you have! Ha! I’m not the fellow to be sorry on
the miller’s account. No, I didn’t mean that at all. He’s not a man to
be sorry for. He thinks poor Gavrilo’s a fool. And he’s right too. I’m
not very clever--don’t think ill of me for it--but still, when I eat I
don’t put my porridge in another man’s mouth, but into my own. And if I
get married it will be for myself, and if I don’t get married it will
be for myself too. Am I right or not?”
“You’re right, you’re right, but I don’t yet know what you’re driving
at.”
“Hee, hee, perhaps you don’t know because you don’t need to. But I need
to know, and I do know why he wants to get me married. Oi, I know it
very well, even though I’m not very bright. When you carried Yankel
away that time I was sorry to see him go, and I said to my master:
Well, who is going to keep the inn for us now? And he answered: Bah,
you fool, do you think some one won’t turn up? Perhaps I’ll keep it
myself! That’s why I say now: take the miller if you want him; we’ll
find some one else to be a Jew in his place. And now let me tell you,
my good man--good gracious, your honour, don’t think ill of me for
calling a foul fiend a man!--and now let me tell you something: I’m
getting terribly sleepy. Do as you please, but catch him yourself; I’m
going to bed, I am, because I’m not very well. That will be splendid.
Ah!”
Gavrilo’s legs began weaving again, and he had hardly opened the door
of the mill before he fell down and began to snore.
The devil laughed merrily, and, going to the edge of the dam, beckoned
to Yankel where he stood under the sycamore tree.
“You seem to have won, Yankel,” he shouted. “It looks very much like
it. But give me something to wear, all the same; I’ll pay you for it.”
Yankel took a pair of breeches to the light and looked them over to be
sure he wasn’t giving the devil a new pair, and while he was busy with
them, an ox-cart appeared on the road leading out of the wood. The oxen
were sleepily nodding their heads, the wheels were quietly squeaking,
and in the cart lay a peasant, Opanas the Slow, without a coat, without
a hat, without boots, bawling a song at the top of his voice.
Opanas was a good peasant, but the poor fellow sorely loved vodka.
Whenever he dressed up to go anywhere Kharko would be sure to call to
him from his look-out at the inn-door:
“Won’t you drink a little mugful, Opanas? What’s your hurry?”
And Opanas would drink it.
Then, when he had crossed the dam and reached the village, the miller
himself would call to him from the door of the other tavern:
“Won’t you come in and have a little mugful, Opanas? What’s the hurry?”
And Opanas would have another drink there. First thing you knew he
would turn home without having been anywhere else at all.
Yes, he was a good peasant, but fate had ordained him always to fall
between the two taverns. And yet he was a merry fellow and was always
singing songs. That is man’s nature. When he has drunk up everything he
possesses and knows that an angry wife is waiting for him at home, he
will make up a song and think he has got rid of his troubles. And so it
was with Opanas. He was lying in his wagon singing so loudly that even
the frogs jumped into the water as he drove up, and this was his song:
“Oxen, oxen, how you crawl,
Walking down the road;
If I stood up, I should fall,
Oi, I’d surely fall.
I’ve drunk up my coat and hat,
The boots from off my feet;
In the inn, I’ll swear to that,
The miller’s vodka’s sweet.
“Oi, what is that devilish brute standing right in the middle of the
dam for, keeping my oxen from crossing? If I wasn’t too tired to get
out of the cart, I’d show him how to plant himself there in the middle
of the road. Gee, gee, gee-up!”
“Stop a minute, my good man!” said the devil very sweetly. “I want to
have a minute’s talk with you.”
“A minute’s talk? All right then, talk away, only I’m in a hurry. The
tavern at Novokamensk will soon be closed so that no one can get in.
But I don’t know what you want to talk about; I don’t know you. Well?”
“About whom were you singing that pretty song?”
“Thank you for praising it! I was singing about the miller that lives
in this mill, but whether the song was pretty or not is my own affair,
because I was singing it to myself. Perhaps some people would fly when
they heard the song, perhaps some would cry. Gee, gee, gee-up! What!
Are you still standing there?”
“I’m still standing here.”
“What for?”
“You said in your song that the miller’s vodka is good. Is that so?”
“Aha, now I see how sly you are! You begin quarrelling with a man’s
song before he has sung it to the end. That’s the devil’s own trick!
You don’t know the proverb, I see: don’t go to hell before your father;
if you do, you’ll be sorry. If that’s how you feel, I’d better sing my
song to the end, so here goes:
Yes, the vodka in the inn
Is good as any sold;
Two parts of it are liquor,
One is water cold.
“Get out of the way, then! What are you standing there for? What do
you want now? Wait a minute till I get out of my wagon and find out
whether you’re going to stand there much longer! What would you think
if I gave you a taste of my stick, hey?”
“I’m going in a minute, my good man, only tell me one thing more. What
would you think if the devil flew away with your miller here as he flew
away with Yankel?”
“What would I think? I wouldn’t think anything at all. He’ll get him
some day, that’s certain; he’ll surely get him. But you’re still
standing there, I see. Take care, I’m climbing out of my wagon! Look,
I’ve already raised one leg!”
“All right, all right, go along with you if you’re as cross as all
that!”
“Are you out of the way?”
“Yes.”
“Gee, gee, gee-up!”
The oxen shook their horns, the yoke and axles creaked, the wagon
trembled, and Opanas continued his song:
“Oxen, oxen, how you crawl,
Hurry up and trot.
The miller has my coat and wheels,
So now he has the lot.”
The wheels bumped down off the dam, and Opanas’ song died away behind
the hill.
But before it had quite died away another song rang out from across the
river. A ringing chorus of women’s voices came streaming through the
night, first from afar, and then from in the wood. A party of women
and girls, who had been gathering in the harvest on a distant farm,
were now on their way home late at night, and were singing to give
themselves courage in the wood.
The devil at once slipped to Yankel’s side under the willow tree.
“Come, give me something more to wear, quick!”
Yankel handed him a heap of rags. The devil hurled them to the ground,
and seized the bundle.
“Here! What do you mean by giving me these rags as if I were a beggar?
I’d be ashamed to be seen in them. Give me something respectable!”
The devil seized what he wanted, folded his wings, which were as soft
as a bat’s, in a second, jumped like a flash into a pair of blue
breeches as wide as the sea, threw on the rest of his clothes, drew his
belt tight, and covered his horns with a high fur hat. Only his tail
hung out over the top of one boot, and trailed along in the sand like a
snake.
Then he smacked his lips, stamped his foot, stuck his arms akimbo, and
went out to meet the lasses, looking for all the world like any young
townsman, or perhaps some would-be gentleman steward.
He planted himself in the middle of the dam.
The song rang out nearer and nearer and clearer and clearer, floating
away under the bright moon until it seemed as if it must wake the
whole of the sleeping world. Then it suddenly broke off short.
The young women poured out of the wood as poppies might pour out of
a girl’s apron, saw the long-tailed dandy standing before them, and
instantly huddled together in a group at the farther end of the dam.
“Who is that standing there?” asked one of the girls.
“It’s the miller,” answered another.
“The miller! Why, it doesn’t look like him one bit!”
“Perhaps it’s his workman.”
“Who ever saw a workman dressed like that?”
“Tell us who you are if you’re not a bad spirit!” called the widow
Buchilikha, evidently the boldest of the party.
The devil bowed to them from a distance, and then approached, cringing
and scraping like any little upstart who tries to appear a gentleman.
“Don’t be afraid, my birdies,” said he. “I’m a young man, but I won’t
do you any harm. Come on, and don’t be afraid.”
Each trying to push the other ahead, the women and girls stepped on to
the dam, and soon surrounded the devil. Ah, there is nothing pleasanter
than to be surrounded by a dozen or so frolicsome lasses bombarding
you with swift glances, nudging one another with their elbows, and
giggling. The devil’s heart was beginning to leap and sparkle a
little, like birch bark in a fire; he hardly knew what to do or where
to turn. And the girls kept laughing at him louder and louder.
“That’s right, that’s right, little birdies!” thought the miller,
peering out from behind his gnarled willow-tree. “Remember, my duckies,
how many songs Philipko has sung with you, how many dances he has led!
See what trouble I’m in! Save me; I’m caught like a fly in a cobweb!”
He thought that if only they were to give the devil one little pinch
the fiend would sink into the ground.
But old Buchilikha stopped the girls and exclaimed:
“Get along with you, little magpies, you’ve laughed at the poor lad
till his nose hangs down and his arms are limp. Tell us, young fellow,
for whom are you waiting here at the edge of the pond?”
“For the miller.”
“Then you’re a friend of his?”
“A plague upon any friend of mine that’s like him!” the miller tried to
cry, but his words stuck in his throat, and the devil replied:
“He’s no very great friend of mine, but I can call him an old
acquaintance.”
“Is it long since you’ve seen him?”
“Yes, a long time.”
“Then you wouldn’t recognise him now. He used to be a nice lad, but he
holds his head so high now that you couldn’t touch his nose with a
pitchfork.”
“Really?”
“Yes, indeed. It’s true, isn’t it, girls?”
“It’s true, true, true!” chattered the whole bevy.
“Tut, tut, not quite so loud!” cried the devil, putting his fingers in
his ears. “Tell me: what has happened to him, and since when has he
changed?”
“Since he grew rich.”
“And began to lend money.”
“And opened a tavern.”
“He and his horrid Kharko have fuddled my husband Opanas so that the
poor man never goes anywhere now except to the tavern.”
“He has ruined our husbands and fathers with his drink.”
“Oi, oi, he’s a misery to us all, the horrid miller!” screamed one of
the band, and in place of their songs, a chorus of wails and women’s
lamentations rang out across the river.
Philip rather scratched his head to hear the way the young women were
interceding for him. But the devil’s mind now seemed to be quite made
up. He glanced at the girls out of one corner of his eye and rubbed his
hands together.
“And that isn’t all!” shouted the widow Buchilikha louder than the
loudest. “Have you heard what he wanted to do to the widow’s Galya?”
“Faugh!” spat the miller. “What a damned lot of magpies they are! What
need to tell what they’re not asked about? And how in the world did
they find it out? Though it only happened in the village to-night, they
have heard the whole story in the hay-fields! Why on earth does God
allow women to live in this world?”
“And what did my friend try to do to the widow’s daughter?” asked the
devil, looking about him as if he weren’t particularly interested in
the story.
So the magpies went on to tell him everything, talking all at once, and
laid the whole affair before him from beginning to end.
The devil shook his head.
“Oi, oi, oi! That’s bad, very bad. I don’t suppose any one ever heard
of your former inn-keeper Yankel doing anything like that?”
“Oh, what Jew ever thought of doing such a thing?”
“Oh, no, never!”
“I see, my daisies, my little peaches, that you don’t love my friend
very much.”
“Let him get the love of all the devils; he needn’t expect any from us!”
“Oi, oi, oi, you don’t wish him much good, I see!”
“May the fever take him and shake him to pieces!”
“May he follow his uncle into the pond!”
“May the devil carry him off as he carried off Yankel!”
They all burst out laughing.
“You are right, Olena; he is worse than a Jew.”
“At least the Jew was a decent fellow; he let the girls alone and lived
with his Sarah.”
The devil actually jumped in his tracks.
“Thank you, thank you, my birdies, for your friendly words. Isn’t it
time for you to be going on?”
With that he threw back his head like a cock that intends to give an
extra loud crow, and burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. He
laughed so loud that all the evil spirits on the bed of the river woke
up, and circles began spreading across the surface of the pond. But the
girls shied away from him like a flock of sparrows into which some one
has thrown a stone, and vanished as if the wind had suddenly blown them
off the dam.
The goose-flesh ran up and down the miller’s back, and he stared down
the road that led to the village.
“The best thing for me to do,” he thought, “is to make off after those
girls as fast as my legs will carry me. I used to be able to run with
the best.”
But at that moment he suddenly felt relieved, for he saw some one
coming toward the mill-dam. And it wasn’t just any one, either, but his
own servant Kharko.
“A miss is as good as a mile!” he thought. “There is my man!”
X
The servant was barefooted; he was wearing a red shirt; a cap without a
brim was stuck on the back of his head, and on a stick he was carrying
Opanas’ new boots, which were dripping tar all over the dam.
“What a hurry he’s in!” thought the miller. “He’s got hold of the boots
already. But never mind, all my hopes are centred on him now.”
As soon as the servant caught sight of a stranger on the dam he
instantly thought that here was some thieving tramp waiting to steal
his boots. So he stopped a few steps from Khapun and said:
“You’d better not come any nearer, I warn you! I won’t give them up!”
“What’s the matter with you? Come to your senses, good man! Haven’t I
boots of my own? Look, they are better than yours!”
“Then why have you planted yourself there by night, like a crooked
willow tree by a pond?”
“Well, you see, I wanted to ask you a question.”
“Splendid! A riddle is it, eh? Who told you I could answer riddles
better than any one else?”
“Ha, ha, I’ve heard people say so!”
The soldier set down his boots, took out his tobacco-pouch, and began
filling his pipe. Then he struck a light with a flint, and, blowing out
a thick cloud of smoke from under his nose, said:
“Now, then, spout it out. What’s your riddle?”
“It isn’t exactly a riddle. I wanted to ask you who you think is the
best man in this neighbourhood?”
“I am!”
“And why do you think that? Isn’t there any one here better than you
are?”
“You ask me what I think. Very well, I answer that I won’t give the
first place to any one.”
“You’re right. And the miller, what sort of a man is he?”
“The miller?”
The soldier blew out of his mouth a cloud of smoke that looked as large
in the moonlight as the tail of a white horse. Then he eyed the devil
askance and asked:
“You’re not a Customs officer, are you?”
“No!”
“And you’re not in the police--a detective, by any chance?”
“No, no, I tell you! What, a clever chap like you, and you can’t even
see when a man’s just an ordinary fellow and when he isn’t?”
“Who said I couldn’t? I can see through and through you. I only asked
that on the chance. And now, let me see; you asked me what sort of man
the miller was?”
“Yes.”
“Well, he’s just about medium height, neither very large nor very
small; a good average.”
“Oh, that’s not what I wanted to know!”
“Isn’t it? What more do you want me to tell you? Perhaps you would like
to know where his warts are, if he has any?”
“You’re trying to throw dust in my eyes I see, but I’m in a hurry. Tell
me in plain words: is the miller a good man or a bad one?”
The soldier blew another huge tail of smoke out of his mouth and said:
“What a hasty fellow you are! You like to eat, but you won’t chew.”
The devil opened his eyes wide, and the miller’s heart jumped for joy.
“What a tongue that boy has!” he thought. “And yet how often have I
wished that it might drop off. But now it has come in useful. How he is
roasting the devil!”
“You like to eat, but you won’t chew, I tell you!” the soldier
repeated sternly. “You want me to tell you whether the miller is a
good man or not. Every man’s good in my opinion. I’ve eaten bread from
many a stove, friend. I wouldn’t even cough where you would die of
suffocation. Do you think you’ve struck a fool in me?”
“Splendid! Splendid! Give it to him hard!” the miller said to himself,
dancing with joy. “My name isn’t Philip the miller if the devil doesn’t
look more foolish than a sheep before half an hour is over! I read so
fast in church that no one can understand me, but he talks quietly, and
yet just listen to what he is saying!”
And in fact the poor devil was scratching his head so hard that he was
nearly knocking his hat off.
“Hold on, soldier!” he exclaimed. “You and I seem to run on and on and
never get anywhere. We’re all tangled up.”
“I don’t know about you, but there’s no tangle I can’t get out of.”
“But look here; I asked you whether the miller was a good man or not,
and see where you’ve led me!”
“Then let me ask you a question: is water good or not?”
“Water? What’s the matter with water?”
“But if there was kvass[J] about you would turn up your nose at water,
wouldn’t you? Water would seem tasteless, then, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes, perhaps it would.”
“And if there was beer on the table you wouldn’t drink kvass, would
you?”
“No, certainly not.”
“And if some one brought you a mug of gorelka you wouldn’t look at
beer, eh?”
“You’re quite right.”
“Very well then, you see!”
The devil broke out into a sweat, and the tail hanging out from under
his coat beat the ground till it actually raised a cloud of dust from
the dam. The soldier threw the stick with his boots on it over his
shoulder and was preparing to take his departure when the devil thought
of a way he might catch him. He stepped a few steps to one side, and
said:
“Well,--go along, go along! I shall wait here a little while longer in
case Kharko the soldier should happen to come by.”
The soldier stopped.
“What do you want with him?”
“Nothing much, but they tell me that Kharko is a bright fellow and that
he knows a thing or two! I thought at first you were he. But now I see
I was wrong. One simply goes round and round in a circle with you, and
can’t get going to save one’s life.”
The soldier set down his boots.
“Come on, ask me another question!”
“Oh, what’s the use?”
“Try!”
“Very well, then: tell me, whom did you like the best, Yankel the
inn-keeper, or the miller?”
“Why didn’t you ask me that at once? I don’t like people that hunt for
their beards alongside their noses. Some people would rather walk ten
versts through the fields than go one verst by the straight road. But
I’ll answer you straight to the point, as they say. Yankel kept one
inn, but the miller keeps two.”
“Oh, hang him, he needn’t have said that!” thought the miller,
miserably. “It would have been ever so much better if he hadn’t
referred to it.”
But the soldier continued:
“When I worked for Yankel, I wore bast shoes, now I wear boots!”
“From where did you get them?”
“From where, eh? Our business is like a well with two buckets. One
bucket fills and the other grows empty. One goes up and the other goes
down. I used to wear bast shoes; now I wear boots. Opanas used to wear
boots; now he goes barefoot because he’s a fool. The bucket comes to
the wise man full and goes away empty. Now do you understand?”
The devil listened attentively, and said:
“Wait a minute! At last we seem to be getting somewhere!”
“But I’ve been telling you the same thing all along. If you call Yankel
kvass, then the miller is beer; but if you were to give me a glass of
good vodka, I should let the beer alone.”
The tip of the devil’s tail skipped about so madly on the sand that
Kharko noticed it at last. He blew a puff of smoke right into the
devil’s face, and put his foot on the tail as if by accident. The devil
jumped, and yelped like a great dog. Both he and Kharko took fright;
they opened their eyes wide, and stood for half a minute staring at
one another without saying a word.
At last Kharko whistled in that insolent way of his, and said:
“Ah, ha! ah, ha! So that’s the game, is it?”
“And what did you think?” asked the devil.
“Now I know the kind of a queer bird you are!”
“I’m what you see I am.”
“Then you’re the one who--last year--?”
“Of course.”
“And you’re--after him?”
“You’re right. And what do you think of my plan?”
Kharko stretched his limbs, blew a puff of smoke, and answered:
“Take him! I won’t cry over him. I’m a poor man. It’s none of my
business. I’ll sit in the inn smoking my pipe till a third one comes
along.”
Once more the devil roared with laughter, but the soldier only slung
his boots across his back and walked rapidly away. As he passed the
sycamore tree the miller heard him muttering to himself:
“So that’s the game, is it? He’s carried off one and now he’s come
back for the other. Well, it’s none of my business. When the devil got
the Jew the miller got the goods. Now he’s come for the miller and
the goods will be mine. A soldier is his own master. Now that I’ve
the business in my own hands, let’s see if I can’t keep it. I’ll not
be poor Kharko any longer, but Mr. Khariton Tregubov. Only I’m not a
fool. No temptation on earth will ever take me on to this dam at night.”
And with that he began climbing the hill.
The miller stared from side to side. Who would help him now? Not a soul
was in sight. Darkness was falling; a frog was croaking sleepily in the
mud; a bittern was booming angrily in the reeds. The edge of the moon
was peeping over the woods as if asking: “What will become of Philip
the miller now?”
It looked at him, winked, and set behind the trees.
The devil stood on the dam holding his sides with laughter. His shouts
of merriment shook the floury dust out of every cranny in the old mill;
all the spirits of the forest and pond awoke and came flitting toward
him, some floating like shadows out of the wood, some hanging like
filmy clouds over the water. The pond stirred, streaks of swirling
white vapour rose from it, and ripples ran in circles across its
surface. The miller gave it one look, and his blood ran cold: a blue
face with dull, staring eyes was glaring up at him out of the water,
its long whiskers waving like the antennæ of a water-beetle. Who could
it be but his uncle, rising from the pond and coming straight toward
the sycamore tree?
Yankel the Jew had long since crept silently out on to the dam, picked
up the clothes which the devil had discarded, slipped across to the
sycamore tree, and hastily tied up his bundle. There was no more
mention of losses now; any man would have been afraid to mention them,
I can tell you! Losses be hanged! Yankel hoisted his bundle on to his
back and shuffled quietly away, following the others along the path
that led from the mill to the village.
The miller made a rush for his mill; once there, at least he would be
able to lock himself in or else wake his workman! But he had hardly
quitted his tree before the devil jumped after him. Philip dashed into
the mill, slammed the door, rushed into his room, hurriedly lit a
light, and fell down on the floor screaming with might and main, just
like--what do you think?--the Jews in their synagogue!
And the devil circled over the mill, stuck his inquisitive nose in at
the window, and couldn’t make out how to get at the tempting morsel
before him.
Suddenly, bang! Something dropped to the floor with a thump as if a
huge cat had jumped into the room. That confounded devil had come down
the chimney! The fiend sprang to his feet, and next instant the miller
felt him sitting on his back, digging his claws into his flesh.
What could he do?
Suddenly, another bang! Darkness fell, and the devil was dragging the
miller through a black, narrow hole. The miller smelt clay, clouds of
soot rose about him, and all at once he saw lying below him the chimney
and the roof of the mill, growing smaller and smaller every second, as
if they and the dam and the sycamore trees and the pond were falling
into a bottomless pit. And there lay the sky, reflected upside-down in
the calm mill-pond spread out below them as smooth as a platter, and
in it the peaceful stars were twinkling as they had always twinkled
before. And the miller saw flying across those dark blue depths a form
that looked first like a hawk, and then like a crow, and then like a
sparrow, and then like a large fly.
“He is taking me ever so high!” thought the miller. “There go your
profits for you, Philipko, and your inns, and all your fine show! Is
there no Christian soul who will call to him: Drop it, it is mine?”
But Christian soul there was none! Below him slept the mill, and out of
the pond the monstrous face of his uncle alone was glaring at him with
glassy eyes, laughing to itself and waving its whiskers.
Farther on the Jew was still crawling up the hill, stooping under his
heavy white bundle. Half way up the ascent stood Kharko, shading his
eyes with his hand and gazing up at the sky.
The scattered band of girls had overtaken Opanas and his oxen. They
were flying along like lunatics and Opanas was staring straight up at
the sky as he lay in his cart. Though his heart was kind, his eyes were
blind with vodka, and his tongue was as heavy as lead. There was no
one, no one, who would cry: Drop it, it is mine!
And there lay the village. There was the tavern, closed for the night;
there stood the sleeping cottages, and there lay the gardens. There,
too, stood the tall poplar tree and the widow’s little khata. Old
Prisia and her daughter were sitting on a bench at the door, weeping
and embracing one another. And why were they weeping? Was it because
next day the miller was going to drive them out of their native hut?
The miller’s heart leaped. At least these two might give him a kind
thought! He plucked up courage and shouted:
“Don’t cry, Galya; don’t cry, little sweetheart! I’ll forgive you all
your debts and the interest, too! Oh, I’m in trouble, in worse trouble
than you are. The Evil One is carrying me away as a spider carries a
little fly.”
Tender and sensitive is the heart of a girl! It did not seem possible
that Galya could have heard the miller’s cry from such a great
distance, but she shuddered nevertheless, and raised her dark, weeping
eyes to heaven.
“Farewell, farewell, my beautiful black eyes,” the miller sighed, and
at that instant he saw the girl’s hands clutch her breast and heard her
rend the air with a piercing scream:
“Drop it, foul fiend! Drop it, it is mine!”
The sound tore at the devil’s ears like the mighty swing of a
brandished chain. His wings fluttered feebly, his claws relaxed their
hold, and Philip floated down like a feather, turning from side to side.
The devil dropped after him like a stone. But as soon as he reached him
and grabbed him afresh, Galya shouted again:
“Drop it, accursed one, it is mine!”
The devil dropped the miller, and once more the poor man floated
downward. So it happened three times, while the marsh lying between the
mill and the village spread ever wider and wider beneath them.
Splash! The miller fell into the soft mud with such a bump that the
bog bounced as if it had been on springs, and threw the miller ten
feet into the air. He fell down again, jumped up, and took to his
heels helter-skelter as fast as his legs could carry him. As he ran he
screamed at the top of his lungs, feeling every second that the devil
was going to grab him.
He reached the first hut on the outskirts of the village, flew the
hedge at a bound, and found himself in the middle of the widow’s
cottage. Here he came to his senses for the first time.
“Well, I am in your cottage, thank God!” he said.
* * * * *
Just think of it, good people, what a prank he had played! There he was
early in the morning, before sunrise, before even the cows had been
driven out to pasture, bareheaded, barefooted, in rags, plunging into
the hut of two unmarried women, a widow and a young girl! Yes, and
the fact that he was hatless was a small matter; it was lucky indeed
he hadn’t lost something else on the way; if he had, he would have
disgraced the poor women forever! And on top of it all what did he say?
“Thank God, I am in your cottage!”
The old woman could only wave her arms, but Galya jumped up in her
nightgown from a bench, threw on a dress, and cried to the miller:
“What are you doing here, you wicked man? Are you so drunk that you
can’t find your own hut, and so come rushing into ours, hey?”
But the miller stood in front of her looking at her with gentle if
slightly staring eyes, and said:
“Come on, hit me as hard as you can!”
And she hit him once: bang!
“Hit me again!”
So she hit him again.
“That’s right. Do you want to hit me any more?”
So she hit him a third time. Then, when she saw that not only did he
not mind, but stood there looking at her with gentle eyes, she threw up
her hands and burst into tears.
“Oi, misery me, poor orphan that I am, who will come to my help? Oi,
what a man this is! Isn’t it enough for him that he has deceived a
young girl like me, and that he wants to turn Turk, and has made every
one gossip about me, and disgraced me before the whole village? Look
at him, look at him, good people! I have hit him three times and he
won’t even turn away. Oi, what can I do with a man like him, tell me,
somebody, do!”
But the miller asked:
“Are you going to hit me again or not? Tell me truly. If you aren’t,
I’m going to sit down on that bench, because I’m tired.”
Galya’s hands were approaching the miller again, but the old woman
guessed there was something out of the ordinary about the business, and
said to her daughter:
“Wait a bit, child! Why do you go on slapping the man’s neck without
even stopping to ask him a question? Can’t you see that the lad’s a
little bit off his head? Tell me, neighbour, where did you come from
so suddenly, and what do you mean by saying: Thank God I am in your
cottage, when you know you oughtn’t to be here at all?”
The miller rubbed his eyes and said:
“Tell me the honest truth, Auntie, am I asleep? Am I still alive? Has
one night or one year passed since yesterday evening? And did I come
here from the mill or did I drop from the sky?”
“Tut, tut, man! Cross yourself with your left hand! What nonsense
you’re talking. You must have been dreaming!”
“I don’t know, good mother, I don’t know. I can’t make head or tail of
it myself.”
He was about to sit down on a bench, when he caught sight through the
window of Yankel the inn-keeper, crawling along with a huge bundle on
his back. The miller jumped up, pointed toward the window, and asked
the two women:
“Who is that walking along there?”
“Why, that’s our Yankel!”
“And what is he carrying?”
“A bundle from the city.”
“Then why do you say I’ve been dreaming? Don’t you see that the Jew has
come back? I saw him at the mill a moment ago, carrying that very same
bundle.”
“And why shouldn’t he have come back?”
“Because the devil carried him off last year. Khapun, you know.”
Well, in a word, there was a great deal of amazement when the miller
told of all that had happened to him. And in the meanwhile a crowd was
beginning to collect in the road in front of the cottage; the people
looked in at the window, and began making slanderous comments.
“Look at that!” they said. “There’s a nice state of affairs! The miller
comes tearing across the fields without a hat, without boots, all
ragged and torn, and runs straight into the widow’s cottage, and there
he sits with them now!”
“Hey! Tell us, good man, whom have you come to see all dressed up like
that? Is it Old Prisia, or young Galya?”
You will agree, I am sure, that no one can allow a poor girl to be
gossiped about like that. The miller was simply obliged to marry her.
But Philip has confessed to me many a time himself that he had always
loved the widow’s Galya, and that after the night when she rescued
him from the foul fiend’s clutches, she grew so dear to him that he
wouldn’t have let himself be driven away from her with a stick.
They are living at the mill now, and already have several children. The
miller has forgotten his inn and no longer lends money at interest. And
whenever a voice in his heart whispers to him to wish Yankel the Jew
out of the village to the devil, he only makes a contemptuous gesture.
“And the inn?” He used sometimes to ask people after his adventure.
“Will it still remain?”
“Of course the inn will remain. What should become of it?”
“But who will keep it? Perhaps you are thinking of doing it yourself?”
“Yes, perhaps I am.”
And at that the miller would only whistle.