[95] _Kruptadia_: Heilbronn: Henninger Frères, 1883: vol. 1: _Secret
Stories from the Russian_.
Once there lived a peasant and his wife who had a daughter, a young
virgin. The girl went forth to harrow the garden; she harrowed and she
harrowed; anon they called her to the house to eat pancakes. She ran
and left the horse with the harrow, saying unto the beast:
“Wait there until I return.”
There was in the house of a neighbour a son, a foolish lad. For long
he had desired to futter the maid; but by what means he could not
conceive. Observing the horse with the harrow, he slipped through the
hedge, unharnessed the horse, and led it into his garden. Leaving
the harrow in its place, he passed the beam through the hedge, and
harnessed the horse afresh from his side.
The young girl returned and stood astonished. What meant this? The
harrow on one side of the hedge, the horse on the other? She fell to
beating the horse with her whip, saying:
“Devil! How camest thou there? Thou didst know how to get there. Thou
wilt know how to return. Come! Come! Out of it!”
The lad stood near; he looked and laughed.
“I will aid thee an thou wilt,” said he, “but only if thou dost permit
me....”
The maid was cunning.
“Willingly,” said she.
And she armed herself with the head of an old pike, which lay about the
garden, its jaws open. Picking it up, she thrust it in her sleeve and
said to the lad:
“I do not wish to come to thy side of the hedge, nor do I wish thee to
come to mine, lest any see thee. Do it through the hedge. Pass me thy
yard and I will put it in.”
The youth drew out his yard and passed it through the hedge. The girl
took the pike’s head, opened it, and put it ‘twixt her thighs. When the
youth rubbed, he scratched his yard so that it bled. Taking it in his
hands, he ran to the house, sat down in a corner, and was very silent.
“Ah! woe is me!” thought he to himself. “How her coynte biteth! If only
my yard will heal, for the rest of my life I will never address another
girl!”
Came the time for the youth to settle down; he was affianced to the
daughter of the neighbour, and they were wedded. They dwelt together
for a day, then two, then three; they dwelt together for a week, then a
second, then a third; but the youth feared to touch his wife.
Constrained one day to go to the house of the young man’s
mother-in-law, they set out on their way. On the road the wife said to
her husband:
“Listen, now, my dear little Danilka. Why hast thou married since thou
dost naught with me? If thou canst do naught, why spoilest the life of
another in this useless fashion?”
And Danilka replied:
“Nay, thou wilt not trap me again. It biteth, thy coynte. My yard hath
long been ill. ‘Tis scarce cured yet.”
“Thou ravest!” answered she. “At that time I did but play with thee.
Have no fear now. Make trial of this dear little thing[96] of mine.
Thou wilt be enchanted with it.”
[96] The text says: _ce cher petit_, which may be interpreted as
referring to the wife’s _pudendum_. _C.f._ _Le petit je ne sais
quoi_ (”My~little~what’s~its~name.”), a common erotic term for
the parts concerned. (Farmer: _Slang and its Analogues_; Landes:
_Glossaire Érotique_; and _Le petit Citateur: Notes Érotiques et
Pornographiques_.) The last authority considers that the word _trou_
(hole) would be understood in the text. _Trou_, of course, is a
common French erotic term for the feminine _pudendum_. On the other
hand, the word _jeu_ (game) may be understood, which would be equally
applicable. _C.f._ Farmer (_Slang_, etc., vol. 3, p. 110): “The first
game ever played,” _i.e._, copulation. Also Landes (_Gloss. Érot._):
“Game: employed in an obscene sense to denote the sexual act.”
And desire took the youth, and he tucked up his robe, saying:
“Wait--I am about to bind thy legs, and if thy coynte biteth, I shall
be able to leap to earth and save myself.”
He let go of the reins and bound the two naked thighs of his young
wife. His instrument was now of sufficient magnitude. When he rammed
the girl, she cried with a loud voice; the horse, which was young, took
fright and began to run away; the sleigh was thrown from side to side;
the peasant fell out; and his young wife, her thighs naked, was dragged
into the courtyard of the mother-in-law.
The mother-in-law gazed through the window; she perceived the horse of
her son-in-law, and was assured that he brought her some viands for
the feast; she went to meet him and found--her daughter!
“Ah! little mother!” cried the latter. “Unbind me swiftly ere any see
me.”
The old woman unbound her and asked what it signified.
“And thy husband, where is he?” she demanded.
“The horse threw him into the road.”
These two entered the house and gazed through the window. Danilka
arrived, approached some small boys who were playing at knuckle-bones,
stopped, and looked about him. The mother-in-law dispatched her eldest
daughter to him. She drew near, saying:
“Good day, Danilka Ivanitch.”
“Good-day.”
“Come into the house. The feast lacketh but thee.”
“Is my wife within?”
“Yea.”
“And hath the blood ceased to flow?”
But the young girl spat and ran away from him.
Then the mother-in-law dispatched her daughter-in-law, who would
appease him.
“Come, come, little Danilka. The blood hath ceased to flow this long
time.”
She led him within the house, and the mother-in-law came to meet him,
saying:
“Welcome, my dear little son-in-law.”
“Varvara--is she within?”
“Yea.”
“And hath the blood ceased to flow?”
“It hath ceased this long time.”
Then he drew forth his yard and showed it to his mother-in-law, saying:
“See, little mother, this awl[97] was entirely inside her body.”
[97] _Alène_ is the word in the text. Not an erotic term for _penis_
in French and English slang, though we have the verb “to bore.” _C.f._
Farmer: _Slang and its Analogues_, for his amazing list of synonyms
denoting the sexual act under the heading “Ride.” Blondeau, in his
_Dictionnaire Érotique_ (Isidore Liseux: Paris, 1885), gives no word
in his collection of Latin terms for _penis_ which approximates
exactly to the sense of awl. Landes, Delvau (_Dictionnaire Érotique_),
and _Le petit Citateur_ (_op. cit. supra_) make no mention of the
word. In our story Danilka, in his very primitive fashion, has used
an expression which explains in the simplest way his actions in the
sleigh.
“Come, come,” said the mother-in-law. “Sit thyself down. ‘Tis time to
eat.”
They sat down, drank, and ate.