Last night before Christmas. The Night Before Christmas (Gogol)
Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
Christmas Eve
ABOUT GOGOL'S STORY
Gogol’s story “The Night Before Christmas,” part of the cycle of his early stories under the general title “Evenings on a farm near Dikanka,” is a programmatic work for the writer: it identifies many themes, ideas, images, characters, destinies, heroes that will accompany great artist in all his difficult path. This story creates a wonderful, epically large-scale image common man- the blacksmith Vakula, before whose energy, intelligence and hard work evil machinations, evil forces, human vices and the machinations of devils recede.
The blacksmith Vakula is a one-of-a-kind Gogol character, which captures the writer’s dreams of a strong and harmonious nature, created for free, joyful, useful work. It is usually said that Gogol did not write positive images, which, perfectly revealing dead souls, he made them hate them, rejected them and thereby affirmed the ideals of goodness, glorified honesty and virtue.
All this is true, but before Gogol realized the purpose of his muse and, in his own expression, “harnessed the scoundrel” in order to expose him to popular ridicule, he sharpened his pen on noble characters.
Without creating the image of the dreamer of universal justice, the sweet young man Hanz Küchelgarten, in his first poetic poem, without writing the life-affirming character of the blacksmith Vakula, without singing the courageous people's hero Taras Bulba, Gogol, perhaps, would not have been able to so fully realize his ascetic task - exposing the dead souls of the then Russia in the name of its amazing future life.
And although the division would be schematic, especially among the classics, into positive heroes and denounced characters - although in Gogol both of them constantly meet, side by side on the pages of the same works - it is still important and should indicate the leading direction of this story, plays, this particular stage of creativity. But the leading intonation of Gogol’s first prose works was still an optimistic, bright, cheerful intonation.
By creating strong and integral characters, Gogol seemed to be looking for that Archimedean fulcrum, upon which he could establish himself and turn the world upside down. In the future, he will try to turn the unjust world upside down with the crushing fire of satire, but for this the artist will need to know that behind him are such heroes as the blacksmith Vakula, the unbending defenders of his native land Taras Bulba and his son Ostap.
Blacksmith Vakula occupies special place and among the few positive images of Gogol’s work. If Taras and Ostap were revealed as wonderful characters on the battlefield, then Vakula’s character is revealed outside of battles and national upheavals, when it is more difficult for courage and nobility of soul to emerge.
From the very first pages of the story, Gogol draws the readers' attention to the remarkable property of Vakula - the blacksmith is constantly busy with work, people flock to him from everywhere with countless requests: to repair a chaise, to make a chest, to paint new dishes with patterns - all of Dikanka used bowls painted by Vakula . If a blacksmith wants to remind someone of himself, he only talks about the work he has done. In St. Petersburg, Vakula meets with the Cossacks who came on community business. At first they do not recognize the poor petitioner, but Vakula reminds: “It’s me, Vakula, the blacksmith! When we drove through Dikanka in the fall... then I put a new tire on the front wheel of your wagon..."
The blacksmith even tells his beloved, Oksana, about his business: he is preparing her a luxurious gift - an iron-bound casket, painted with flaming red and blue flowers. Vakula conveys the heat of his soul, talking about the “hot” radiance of the drawings for Oksana; he thinks that he can most likely conquer a girl through hard work, loyalty to his work, and the reliability of his strong hands. However, the capricious Oksana does not appreciate the modesty of her lover; give her unusual, rich gifts, for example, shoes “that the queen herself wears.” But Vakula, misunderstood by Oksana, does not betray himself - this courageous and honest hero of Gogol relies only on his own strength, on his own work.
It is curious that even in the worst moments, when Oksana does not respond to his ardent love, Vakula does not indulge in aimless sadness, like other romantic heroes, and does not send cruel reproaches to the inexorable beauty. The blacksmith Vakula, upset after another unsuccessful date with Oksana, “absently looked around the corners of his hut...” and “finally fixed his eyes on the bags: “Why are these bags lying here?” It’s time to remove them from here long ago. This stupid love has made me completely stupid. Tomorrow is a holiday, and all sorts of rubbish is still lying in the house. Take them to the forge!“
A remarkable detail: the eyes and hands of a working person are constantly looking for work. “Through this stupid love I have become completely stupefied” - neither Pushkin’s romantic Aleko nor Lermontov’s demonic heroes will say this. Only Gogol’s Vakula, who saddled even the devil himself when he needed him for business, can say this. And the devil, of no use to anyone, went into action, and the blacksmith used him to his advantage. The unclean one took him to St. Petersburg to get shoes for Oksana.
Vakula’s constant craving for beauty, his ability to appreciate and understand creative work are also remarkable. No matter what expensive objects Vakula sees, he values things according to the work put into them. So Vakula came to the palace, but it was not the queen, nor the courtiers who occupied the Dikan blacksmith. Vakula stopped dead in his tracks in front of the paintings of famous masters. He, a resident of a distant farm, has an innate sense of beauty, a living sense of beauty, imprinted by hand masters “What a picture! what a wonderful painting! - he reasoned, - it seems he’s talking! It seems alive!.. and the colors! Oh my God, what colors!” The blacksmith’s attention is attracted here by every little detail, made with soul, every detail that is close to his profession. “However amazing these paintings are (the blacksmith thought about the paintings. - I.V.), but this copper handle,” he continued, going up to the door and feeling the lock, “is even more worthy of surprise. Eh, what a pure workmanship!..” And he did not walk up the stairs, yawning. He was not blinded by the wealth of the palace, but by the skill of the unknown hundreds and hundreds of Vakula and Ivanov, who created all this man-made beauty of the palace chambers. “...What a railing (thought the blacksmith - I.V.)! what a job!” “Work” is the main thing that makes up the real meaning of the life of Gogol’s Vakula, the hero of a fantastic story about how evil spirits wandered the earth on the night before Christmas.
The fantastic world of the story is surprisingly and organically intertwined with the earthly thoughts of the blacksmith Vakula about work, with his ardent surprise at people who know how to create beauty. And Vakula’s honest work - the chests, carts, wheels he made - turns out in the end to be a much greater miracle than all the miracles that a witch, or even the devil himself, can show. Their miracles crumble to dust along with the crow of the first rooster - miracles created by labor come to life in the light of day and forever remain the property of grateful humanity.
In “The Night Before Christmas”, reality and fiction, free fantasy and a reliable description of everyday life are intertwined in a Gogolian way, unobtrusively and cheerfully. This is precisely for the book in which the story “The Night Before Christmas” is placed - a story where devils and witches act along with people, is attached a list of words not translated by Gogol from Ukrainian. As an artist, he felt that no identical designations would help preserve the flavor of his native Ukraine. That is why in the preface before “Evenings...” there is the famous Gogol list, which reads: “Bashtan is a place sown with watermelons and melons... Dumplings are dumplings... Turtle dove is a dance. Grechanik - bread made from buckwheat flour... Dukat - a kind of medal worn around the neck by women... Kuren - a straw hut... Pivkopy - twenty-five kopecks...” We will not list further everything that the writer himself wrote out with a caring hand, helping his future readers understand the meaning of untranslated words and not lose at the same time a grain of their density, not a dash of their unique meaning in this particular language.
But Gogol is not satisfied with this list either, when he begins the story. On the very first page of “The Night Before Christmas” there is a footnote that explains the meaning of the concept of “caroling”: “Caroling in our country means singing songs under the windows on the eve of Christmas, which are called carols. The hostess will always throw into the bag for the one who sings carols... sausage, or bread, or a copper penny, whatever one is rich in..." Let us pay attention to this persistent desire of Gogol to create a clear realistic picture of existence, for subsequently it shifts from its "home" with a sharp rise of fiction , a mighty burst of fantasy.
As a rule, before soaring into the expanses of fiction, Gogol calmly and in detail described the “interior” - that “stage of life” on which absolutely incredible events take place. Incredible events began for him in reliable circumstances. The devil appears on an everyday, carefully described scene in “The Night Before Christmas.” Solokha has empty bags lying around her hut; a lanky godfather with a rich Cossack Chub wanders along a snowy street in search of a tavern; Oksana and the girls are caroling under the windows and singing funny songs. If all this had not been authentic, realistically described on earth, Gogol’s little cunning devil could not have flown over it.
Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
CHRISTMAS EVE
The last day before Christmas has passed. A clear winter night has arrived. The stars looked out. The month majestically rose into the sky to shine on good people and the whole world, so that everyone would have fun caroling and praising Christ. It was freezing more than in the morning; but it was so quiet that the crunch of frost under a boot could be heard half a mile away. Not a single crowd of boys had ever appeared under the windows of the huts; for a month he only glanced at them furtively, as if calling the girls who were dressing up to run out quickly into the slippery snow. Then smoke fell in clouds through the chimney of one hut and spread like a cloud across the sky, and along with the smoke a witch rose riding on a broom.
If at that time the Sorochinsky assessor had passed by on a trio of philistine horses, in a hat with a lambswool band, made in the manner of the Uhlan, in a blue sheepskin coat lined with black smushkas, with a devilishly woven whip, with which he is in the habit of urging his coachman on, then he would have correctly noticed her, because not a single witch in the world can escape from the Sorochinsky assessor. He knows firsthand how many piglets each woman has and how much linen is in her chest, and what exactly from his clothes and household goods a good man will pawn in a tavern on Sunday. But the Sorochinsky assessor did not pass through, and what does he care about strangers, he has his own volost. And the witch, meanwhile, rose so high that she was only a black speck flashing above. But wherever the speck appeared, there the stars, one after another, disappeared from the sky. Soon the witch had a full sleeve of them. Three or four were still shining. Suddenly, on the other side, another speck appeared, grew larger, began to stretch, and was no longer a speck. A short-sighted person would even put wheels from a commissar's britzka on his nose instead of glasses, and then he would not recognize what it was. The front is completely German: a narrow muzzle, constantly twirling and sniffing everything it comes across, ending, like our pigs, in a round snout; the legs were so thin that if the Yareskovsky head had had such, he would have broken them in the first Cossack. But behind him he was a real provincial attorney in uniform, because he had a tail hanging, so sharp and long, like today’s uniform coattails; only by the goat beard under his muzzle, by the small horns sticking out on his head, and by the fact that he was no whiter than a chimney sweep, one could guess that he was neither a German nor a provincial attorney, but simply a devil who had his last night left to wander around the world and teach the sins of good people. Tomorrow, with the first bells for matins, he will run without looking back, tail between his legs, to his den. Meanwhile, the devil was creeping slowly towards the month, and was already reaching out his hand to grab him; but suddenly he pulled it back, as if he had been burned, sucked his fingers, swung his leg and ran to the other side, and again jumped back and pulled his hand away. However, despite all the failures, the cunning devil did not abandon his mischief. Running up, he suddenly grabbed the month with both hands, grimacing and blowing, throwing it from one hand to the other, like a man getting fire for his cradle with his bare hands; Finally, he hastily put it in his pocket and, as if nothing had happened, ran on. In Dikanka, no one heard how the devil stole the month. True, the volost clerk, leaving the tavern on all fours, saw that the month, for no apparent reason, was dancing in the sky, and assured the whole village of this to God; but the laymen shook their heads and even laughed at him. But what was the reason for the devil to decide on such a lawless deed? And here's what: he knew that the rich Cossack Chub had been invited by the clerk to a kutya, where they would be: the head; a relative of the clerk, who came from the bishop's choir, in a blue frock coat, and played the deepest bass; Cossack Sverbyguz and some others; where, in addition to kuti, there will be varenukha, saffron-distilled vodka and a lot of other edibles. Meanwhile, his daughter, the beauty of the whole village, will remain at home, and a blacksmith, a strong man and a fellow anywhere, who was the devil more disgusting than the sermons of Father Kondrat, will probably come to his daughter. In his spare time from work, the blacksmith was engaged in painting and was known as the best painter in the entire area. The centurion L...ko himself, who was still in good health at that time, deliberately called him to Poltava to paint the board fence near his house. All the bowls from which the Dikan Cossacks drank borscht were painted by a blacksmith. The blacksmith was a God-fearing man and often painted images of saints, and now you can still find his Evangelist Luke in the T... church. But the triumph of his art was one painting painted on the church wall in the right vestibule, in which he depicted Saint Peter on the day of the Last Judgment, with keys in his hands, expelling an evil spirit from hell: the frightened devil rushed in all directions, anticipating his death, and the previously imprisoned sinners beat and drove him with whips, logs and anything else they could find. While the painter was working on this picture and painting it on a large wooden board, the devil tried with all his might to disturb him: he pushed him invisibly under his arm, lifted ash from the furnace in the forge and sprinkled it on the picture; but, despite everything, the work was finished, the board was brought into the church and embedded in the wall of the vestibule, and from that time on the devil swore to take revenge on the blacksmith. There was only one night left for him to wander around in this world; but even that night he was looking for something to take out his anger on the blacksmith. And for this purpose he decided to steal a month, in the hope that old Chub was lazy and not easy-going, but the clerk was not so close to the hut: the road went behind the village, past the mills, past the cemetery, and went around a ravine. Even on a monthly night, boiled milk and vodka infused with saffron could have lured Chub; but in such darkness it is unlikely that anyone would have been able to pull him off the stove and call him out of the hut. And the blacksmith, who had long been at odds with him, would never dare to go to his daughter in his presence, despite his strength. Thus, as soon as the devil hid his month in his pocket, suddenly it became so dark all over the world that not everyone could find the way to the tavern, not only to the clerk. The witch, suddenly seeing herself in the darkness, screamed. Then the devil, coming up like a little demon, grabbed her by the arm and began to whisper in her ear the same thing that is usually whispered to the entire female race. Wonderfully arranged in our world! Everything that lives in him tries to adopt and imitate one another. Previously, it used to be that in Mirgorod one judge and the mayor walked around in winter in cloth-covered sheepskin coats, and all the petty officials wore simply sheepskin coats; now both the assessor and the sub-committee have polished themselves new fur coats from Reshetilovsky smushkas with a cloth cover. The clerk and the volost clerk, in his third year, took a blue Chinese coin for six hryvnia arshins. The sexton made himself nankeen trousers for the summer and a vest from striped garus. In a word, everything gets into people! When will these people not be fussy! You can bet that many will find it surprising to see the devil who has set himself free in the same place. The most annoying thing is that he truly imagines himself to be handsome, while his figure is ashamed to look at. Erysipelas, as Foma Grigorievich says, is an abomination, an abomination, but he, too, makes love hens! But it became so dark in the sky and under the sky that it was no longer possible to see anything that happened between them.
* * *“So, godfather, you haven’t been to the clerk in the new house yet?” - said the Cossack Chub, leaving the door of his hut, to a lean, tall man in a short sheepskin coat with a bushy beard, showing that for more than two weeks a piece of a scythe, with which men usually shave their beards for lack of a razor, had not touched it. “Now there will be a good drinking party! - Chub continued, grinning his face. “As long as we don’t be late.” At the same time, Chub straightened his belt, which tightly intercepted his sheepskin coat, pulled his hat tighter, clutched the whip in his hand - the fear and threat of the annoying dogs; but, looking up, he stopped... “What a devil! Look! look, Panas!..”
What? - said the godfather and raised his head up.
Like what? no month!
What an abyss! There really is no month.
“Well, no,” Chub said with some annoyance at his godfather’s constant indifference. - You probably don’t need it.
What should I do?
“It was necessary,” continued Chub, wiping his mustache with his sleeve, “for some devil, so that he wouldn’t have a chance to drink a glass of vodka in the morning, a dog, to intervene!.. Really, as if for a laugh... On purpose, sitting in the hut, he looked at window: night is a miracle! Light; the snow shines during the month. Everything was as visible as day. I didn’t have time to go out the door, and now, at least gouge out my eye!” Chub grumbled and scolded for a long time, and meanwhile, at the same time, he was thinking about what to decide on. He was dying to croak about all this nonsense at the clerk's, where, without any doubt, the head, the visiting bass, and the tar Mikita were already sitting, who went every two weeks to Poltava to auction and made such jokes that all the laymen grabbed their stomachs with laughter. Chub already mentally saw the boiled milk standing on the table. It was all tempting, really; but the darkness of the night reminded him of that laziness that is so dear to all Cossacks. How nice it would be now to lie with your legs tucked under you on a couch, quietly smoke a cradle and listen through your delightful drowsiness to carols and songs of cheerful boys and girls crowding in heaps under the windows. He would, without any doubt, decide on the latter if he were alone; but now both of them are not so bored and afraid to walk in the dark at night, and they didn’t want to appear lazy or cowardly in front of others. Having finished the scolding, he turned again to his godfather.
The last day before Christmas has passed. A winter, clear night arrived. The stars looked out. The month majestically rose into the sky to shine on good people and the whole world, so that everyone would have fun caroling and praising Christ 1 . It was freezing more than in the morning; but it was so quiet that the crunch of frost under a boot could be heard half a mile away. Not a single crowd of boys had ever appeared under the windows of the huts; for a month he only glanced at them furtively, as if calling the girls who were dressing up to run out quickly into the slippery snow. Then smoke fell in clouds through the chimney of one hut and spread like a cloud across the sky, and along with the smoke a witch rose riding on a broom.
If at that time the Sorochinsky assessor was passing by on a trio of philistine horses, in a hat with a lambswool band, made in the manner of the Uhlans, in a blue sheepskin coat lined with black smushkas, with a devilishly woven whip, with which he is in the habit of urging his coachman on, then he would probably , noticed her, because not a single witch in the world can escape from the Sorochinsky assessor. He knows firsthand how many piglets each woman has, and how much linen is in her chest, and what exactly from his clothes and household goods a good man will pawn in the tavern on Sunday. But the Sorochinsky assessor did not pass through, and what does he care about strangers, he has his own volost. Meanwhile, the witch rose so high that she was only a black speck flashing above. But wherever the speck appeared, there the stars, one after another, disappeared from the sky. Soon the witch had a full sleeve of them. Three or four were still shining. Suddenly, on the opposite side, another speck appeared, grew larger, began to stretch, and was no longer a speck. A short-sighted person, even if he had put wheels from a commissar's chaise on his nose instead of glasses, he would not have recognized what it was. The front is completely German 2: a narrow muzzle, constantly spinning and sniffing everything that comes across, ending, like our pigs, in a round snout, the legs were so thin that if Yareskovsky had such a head, he would have broken them in the first Cossack . But behind him he was a real provincial attorney in uniform, because he had a tail hanging, so sharp and long, like today’s uniform coattails; only by the goat beard under his muzzle, by the small horns sticking out on his head, and by the fact that he was no whiter than a chimney sweep, one could guess that he was neither a German nor a provincial attorney, but simply a devil who had his last night left to wander around the world and teach the sins of good people. Tomorrow, with the first bells for matins, he will run without looking back, tail between his legs, to his den.
Meanwhile, the devil was creeping slowly towards the month and was about to stretch out his hand to grab it, but suddenly he pulled it back, as if he had been burned, sucked his fingers, swung his leg and ran on the other side, and again jumped back and pulled his hand away. However, despite all the failures, the cunning devil did not abandon his mischief. Running up, he suddenly grabbed the month with both hands, grimacing and blowing, throwing it from one hand to the other, like a man getting fire for his cradle with his bare hands; Finally, he hastily put it in his pocket and, as if nothing had happened, ran on.
In Dikanka, no one heard how the devil stole the month. True, the volost clerk, leaving the tavern on all fours, saw that he had been dancing in the sky for no reason at all for a month, and assured the whole village of this to God; but the laymen shook their heads and even laughed at him. But what was the reason for the devil to decide on such a lawless deed? And here's what: he knew that the rich Cossack Chub had been invited by the clerk to the kutya, where they would be: the head; a relative of the clerk in a blue frock coat who came from the bishop's choir and played the lowest bass; Cossack Sverbyguz and some others; where, in addition to kutya, there will be varenukha, saffron-distilled vodka and a lot of other edibles. Meanwhile, his daughter, the beauty of the whole village, will remain at home, and a blacksmith, a strong man and a fellow anywhere, who was the devil more disgusting than the sermons of Father Kondrat, will probably come to his daughter. In his spare time from work, the blacksmith was engaged in painting and was known as the best painter in the entire area. The centurion L...ko himself, who was still in good health at that time, deliberately called him to Poltava to paint the board fence near his house. All the bowls from which the Dikan Cossacks drank borscht were painted by a blacksmith. The blacksmith was a God-fearing man and often painted images of saints: and now you can still find his evangelist Luke in the T... church. But the triumph of his art was one painting painted on the church wall in the right vestibule, in which he depicted St. Peter on the day of the Last Judgment, with keys in his hands, expelling an evil spirit from hell; the frightened devil rushed in all directions, anticipating his death, and the previously imprisoned sinners beat and chased him with whips, logs and anything else they could find. While the painter was working on this picture and painting it on a large wooden board, the devil tried with all his might to disturb him: he pushed him invisibly under his arm, lifted ash from the furnace in the forge and sprinkled it on the picture; but, despite everything, the work was finished, the board was brought into the church and embedded in the wall of the vestibule, and from that time on the devil swore to take revenge on the blacksmith.
There was only one night left for him to wander around in this world; but even that night he was looking for something to take out his anger on the blacksmith. And for this purpose he decided to steal a month, in the hope that old Chub was lazy and not easy-going, but the clerk was not so close to the hut: the road went behind the village, past the mills, past the cemetery, and went around a ravine. Even on a month-long night, boiled milk and vodka infused with saffron could have lured Chub, but in such darkness it is unlikely that anyone would have been able to pull him off the stove and call him out of the hut. And the blacksmith, who had long been at odds with him, would never dare to go to his daughter in his presence, despite his strength.
Thus, as soon as the devil hid his month in his pocket, suddenly it became so dark all over the world that not everyone could find the way to the tavern, not only to the clerk. The witch, suddenly seeing herself in the darkness, screamed. Then the devil, coming up like a little demon, grabbed her by the arm and began to whisper in her ear the same thing that is usually whispered to the entire female race. Wonderfully arranged in our world! Everything that lives in him tries to adopt and imitate one another. Previously, it used to be that in Mirgorod one judge and the mayor walked around in winter in cloth-covered sheepskin coats, and all the petty officials wore simply sheepskin coats; now both the assessor and the sub-committee have polished themselves new fur coats from Reshetilovsky smushkas with a cloth cover. The clerk and the volost clerk took a blue Chinese coin for the third year for six hryvnia arshins. The sexton made himself nankeen trousers for the summer and a vest from striped garus. In a word, everything gets into people! When will these people not be fussy! You can bet that many will find it surprising to see the devil who has set himself free in the same place. The most annoying thing is that he probably imagines himself handsome, while his figure is ashamed to look at. Erysipelas, as Foma Grigorievich says, is an abomination, an abomination, but he, too, makes love hens! But it became so dark in the sky and under the sky that it was no longer possible to see anything that happened between them.
So, godfather, you haven’t been to the clerk in the new house yet? - said the Cossack Chub, leaving the door of his hut, to a lean, tall man in a short sheepskin coat with a bushy beard, showing that for more than two weeks a piece of a scythe, with which men usually shave their beards for lack of a razor, had not touched it. - Now there will be a good drinking party! - Chub continued, grinning his face. - As long as we don’t be late.
At the same time, Chub straightened his belt, which tightly intercepted his sheepskin coat, pulled his hat tighter, clutched the whip in his hand - the fear and threat of the annoying dogs; but, looking up, he stopped...
What a devil! Look! look, Panas!..
What? - said the godfather and raised his head up.
Like what? no month!
What an abyss! There really is no month.
“Well, no,” Chub said with some annoyance at his godfather’s constant indifference. - You probably don’t need it.
What should I do?
“It was necessary,” Chub continued, wiping his mustache with his sleeve, “some devil, so that he wouldn’t have a chance to drink a glass of vodka in the morning, a dog!.. Really, as if for a laugh... On purpose, sitting in the hut, he looked out the window : the night is a miracle! It’s light, the snow shines in the month. Everything was as visible as day. I didn’t have time to go out the door - and now, at least gouge out my eyes!
Chub grumbled and scolded for a long time, and meanwhile at the same time he was thinking about what to decide on. He was dying to croak about all this nonsense at the clerk's, where, without any doubt, the head, the visiting bass, and the tar Mikita were already sitting, who went every two weeks to Poltava to auction and made such jokes that all the laymen grabbed their stomachs with laughter. Chub already mentally saw the boiled milk standing on the table. It was all tempting, really; but the darkness of the night reminded him of that laziness that is so dear to all Cossacks. How nice it would be now to lie with your legs tucked under you on a couch, quietly smoke a cradle and listen through your delightful drowsiness to carols and songs of cheerful boys and girls crowding in heaps under the windows. Without any doubt, he would have decided on the latter if he had been alone, but now both of them are not so bored and scared to walk in the dark at night, and they didn’t want to appear lazy or cowardly in front of others. Having finished the scolding, he turned again to his godfather:
So no, godfather, a month?
Wonderful, really! Let me smell some tobacco. You, godfather, have nice tobacco! Where do you get it?
What the hell, nice one! - answered the godfather, closing the birch tavlina, pockmarked with patterns. - old hen don't sneeze!
“I remember,” Chub continued in the same way, “the late tavern owner Zozulya once brought me tobacco from Nezhin. Oh, there was tobacco! it was good tobacco! So, godfather, what should we do? It's dark outside.
“So, perhaps, we’ll stay at home,” said the godfather, grabbing the door handle.
If his godfather had not said this, then Chub would probably have decided to stay, but now it was as if something was pulling him to go against it.
No, godfather, let's go! You can't, you have to go!
Having said this, he was already annoyed with himself for what he had said. It was very unpleasant for him to trudge on such a night; but he was consoled by the fact that he himself deliberately wanted this and did not do it as he was advised.
The godfather, without expressing the slightest movement of annoyance on his face, like a man who absolutely does not care whether he sits at home or drags himself out of the house, looked around, scratched his shoulders with a batog stick, and the two godfathers set off on the road.
Now let's see what the beautiful daughter does when left alone. Oksana had not yet turned seventeen years old, and in almost the whole world, both on the other side of Dikanka and on this side of Dikanka, there was nothing but talk about her. The boys proclaimed in droves that there had never been and never would be a better girl in the village. Oksana knew and heard everything that was said about her, and she was capricious, like a beauty. If she had walked around not in a scaffold and a spare tire, but in some kind of hood, she would have scattered all her girls. The boys chased her in crowds, but, having lost patience, they left little by little and turned to others, who were not so spoiled. Only the blacksmith was stubborn and did not give up his red tape, despite the fact that he was treated no better than others.
After her father left, she spent a long time dressing up and pretending in front of a small mirror in tin frames and could not stop admiring herself. “Why do people want to tell people that I’m good? - she said, as if absentmindedly, just to chat with herself about something. “People lie, I’m not good at all.” But the fresh face that flashed in the mirror, alive in childhood, with sparkling black eyes and an inexpressibly pleasant smile that burned through the soul, suddenly proved the opposite. “Are my black eyebrows and eyes,” the beauty continued, without letting go of the mirror, “so good that they have no equal in the world? What's so good about that upturned nose? and in the cheeks? and on the lips? As if my black braids are good? Wow! You can be scared of them in the evening: they, like long snakes, twisted and wrapped around my head. I see now that I am not good at all! - and, moving the mirror a little further away from herself, she cried out: “No, I’m good!” Oh, how good! Miracle! What joy will I bring to the one I will marry! How my husband will admire me! He won't remember himself. He will kiss me to death."
Wonderful girl! - whispered the blacksmith who entered quietly, - and she has little boasting! He stands for an hour, looking in the mirror, and can’t get enough of it, and still praises himself out loud!
“Yes, boys, am I a match for you? “Look at me,” continued the pretty coquette, “how smoothly I perform; My shirt is made of red silk. And what ribbons on the head! You will never see richer braid in your life! My father bought me all this so that the best guy in the world could marry me!” And, grinning, she turned in the other direction and saw the blacksmith...
She screamed and stopped sternly in front of him.
The blacksmith dropped his hands.
It is difficult to tell what the dark-skinned face of the wonderful girl expressed: the severity was visible in it, and through the severity there was some kind of mockery of the embarrassed blacksmith, and a barely noticeable color of annoyance spread subtly across her face; and it was all so mixed up and so indescribably good that kissing her a million times was all the best that could be done then.
Why did you come here? - this is how Oksana began to speak. - Do you really want to be kicked out the door with a shovel? You are all masters at approaching us. You'll know in no time when your fathers aren't home. Oh, I know you! So, is my chest ready?
He will be ready, my dear, after the holiday he will be ready. If you only knew how much you fussed around him: he didn’t leave the forge for two nights; but not a single priest will have such a chest. He put iron on the forge that he didn’t put on the centurion’s taratayka when he went to work in Poltava. And how it will be scheduled! Even if you walk around the whole neighborhood with your little white legs, you won’t find anything like this! Red and blue flowers. It will burn like heat. Don't be angry with me! Let me at least talk, at least look at you!
Who forbids you, speak and see!
Then she sat down on the bench and again looked in the mirror and began to straighten her braids on her head. She looked at her neck, at the new shirt, embroidered with silk, and a subtle feeling of self-satisfaction was expressed on her lips, on her fresh cheeks, and shone in her eyes.
Let me sit next to you too! - said the blacksmith.
“Sit down,” Oksana said, keeping the same feeling in her lips and satisfied eyes.
Wonderful, beloved Oksana, let me kiss you! - said the encouraged blacksmith and pressed her to him, intending to grab a kiss; but Oksana turned her cheeks, which were already at an imperceptible distance from the blacksmith’s lips, and pushed him away.
What else do you want? When he needs honey, he needs a spoon! Go away, your hands are tougher than iron. And you yourself smell of smoke. I think I got soot all over me.
Then she brought up the mirror and again began to preen herself in front of it.
“She doesn’t love me,” the blacksmith thought to himself, hanging his head. - All toys for her; and I stand in front of her like a fool and don’t take my eyes off her. And he would still stand in front of her, and never take his eyes off her! Wonderful girl! What I wouldn’t give to know what’s in her heart, who she loves! But no, she doesn’t need anyone. She admires herself; torments me, poor thing; but I don’t see the light behind the sadness; and I love her as no other person in the world has ever loved or will ever love.”
Is it true that your mother is a witch? - Oksana said and laughed; and the blacksmith felt that everything inside him was laughing. This laughter seemed to resonate at once in his heart and in his quietly trembling veins, and with all this vexation sank into his soul that he was not in the power to kiss the face that laughed so pleasantly.
What do I care about my mother? you are my mother, and my father, and everything that is dear in the world. If the king called me and said: “Blacksmith Vakula, ask me for everything that is best in my kingdom, I will give it all to you. I will order you to make a gold forge, and you will forge with silver hammers.” “I don’t want,” I would say to the king, “neither expensive stones, nor a gold forge, nor your entire kingdom: better give me my Oksana!”
See what you are like! Only my father himself is not a mistake. You’ll see when he doesn’t marry your mother,” Oksana said, smiling slyly. - However, the girls don’t come... What does that mean? It's high time to start caroling. I'm getting bored.
God be with them, my beauty!
No matter how it is! The boys will probably come with them. This is where the balls begin. I can imagine the funny stories they will tell!
So are you having fun with them?
It's more fun than with you. A! someone knocked; That's right, girls with boys.
“What more should I expect? - the blacksmith spoke to himself. - She's making fun of me. I am as dear to her as a rusty horseshoe. But if that’s the case, at least someone else won’t get to laugh at me. Let me just notice who she likes more than me; I'll wean..."
There was a knock on the door and a voice that sounded sharply in the cold: “Open!” - interrupted his thoughts.
Wait, I’ll open it myself,” said the blacksmith and went out into the hallway, intending to break off the sides of the first person he came across out of frustration.
The frost increased, and it became so cold above that the devil jumped from one hoof to another and blew into his fist, wanting to somehow warm up his frozen hands. It is not surprising, however, that someone who hustled from morning to morning in hell would freeze to death, where, as you know, it is not as cold as here in winter, and where, putting on a cap and standing in front of the fire, as if he were really a cook, he was roasting he eats sinners with the same pleasure with which a woman usually fries sausage for Christmas.
The witch herself felt that it was cold, despite the fact that she was warmly dressed; and therefore, raising her hands up, she put her foot down and, having brought herself into such a position as a man flying on skates, without moving a single joint, she descended through the air, as if along an icy sloping mountain, and straight into the chimney.
The devil followed her in the same order. But since this animal is more agile than any dandy in stockings, it is not surprising that at the very entrance to the chimney he ran into the neck of his mistress, and both found themselves in a spacious stove between the pots.
The traveler slowly pulled back the flap to see if her son Vakula had invited guests to the hut, but when she saw that there was no one there, except for the bags that lay in the middle of the hut, she crawled out of the stove, threw off the warm casing, recovered, and no one could find out that she was riding a broom a minute ago.
The mother of the blacksmith Vakula was no more than forty years old. She was neither good-looking nor bad-looking. It’s hard to be good in such years. However, she was so able to charm the most sedate Cossacks (who, by the way, it doesn’t hurt to note, had little need for beauty) that both the head and the clerk Osip Nikiforovich came to her (of course, if the clerk was not at home), and the Cossack Korniy Chub, and the Cossack Kasyan Sverbyguz. And, to her credit, she knew how to skillfully deal with them. It never occurred to any of them that he had a rival. Whether a devout man, or a nobleman, as the Cossacks call themselves, dressed in a kobenyak with a visloga, went to church on Sunday or, if the weather was bad, to a tavern, how could he not go to Solokha, eat fatty dumplings with sour cream and chat in a warm a hut with a talkative and obsequious mistress. And the nobleman deliberately made a big detour for this purpose before reaching the tavern, and called it - going along the road. And if Solokha would go to church on a holiday, putting on a bright coat with a Chinese spare tire, and on top of it a blue skirt, on which a golden mustache was sewn at the back, and would stand right next to the right wing, then the clerk would surely cough and squint involuntarily at that side of the eye; The head stroked his mustache, wrapped the Oseledets behind his ear and said to his neighbor standing next to him: “Eh, good woman! damn it!"
Solokha bowed to everyone, and everyone thought that she was bowing to him alone. But anyone who wanted to interfere in other people's affairs would have immediately noticed that Solokha was most friendly with the Cossack Chub. Chub was a widow; eight stacks of bread always stood in front of his hut. Every time two pairs of stalwart oxen poked their heads out of the wicker barn into the street and mooed when they envied the walking godfather - a cow, or their uncle - a fat bull. The bearded goat climbed to the very roof and rattled from there in a sharp voice, like a mayor, teasing the turkeys performing in the yard and turning around when he envied his enemies, the boys, who mocked his beard.
In Chub's chests there was a lot of linen, zhupans and old kuntushas with gold braid: his late wife was a dandy. In the garden, in addition to poppy seeds, cabbage, and sunflowers, two fields of tobacco were sown every year. Solokha found it useful to add all this to her household, thinking in advance about what kind of order it would take when it passed into her hands, and she doubled her favor towards old Chub. And so that somehow her son Vakula would not drive up to his daughter and not have time to take everything for himself, and then probably would not allow her to interfere in anything, she resorted to the usual means of all forty-year-old gossips: to quarrel between Chuba and the blacksmith as often as possible. Perhaps these very cunning and cleverness of hers were the reason that here and there old women began to say, especially when they were drinking too much at a merry gathering somewhere, that Solokha was definitely a witch; that the boy Kizyakolupenko saw her tail from behind, no larger than a woman’s spindle; that the Thursday before last she crossed the road like a black cat; that a pig once ran up to the priest, crowed like a rooster, put Father Kondrat’s hat on his head and ran back.
It happened that while the old women were talking about this, some cow shepherd, Tymish Korostyavy, came. He did not fail to tell how in the summer, just before Peter’s Day, when he went to sleep in the barn, having put straw under his head, he saw with his own eyes that a witch, with a loose braid, in only a shirt, began to milk the cows, but he could not move, so was bewitched; After milking the cows, she came to him and smeared something so disgusting on his lips that he spat all day after that. But all this is somewhat doubtful, because only the Sorochinsky assessor can see the witch. And that is why all the eminent Cossacks waved their hands when they heard such speeches. “Women are lying bitches!” - was their usual answer.
Having crawled out of the stove and recovered, Solokha, like a good housewife, began to clean up and put everything in its place, but did not touch the bags: “Vakula brought this, let him take it out himself!” The devil, meanwhile, when he was still flying into the chimney, somehow accidentally turned around and saw Chub hand in hand with his godfather, already far from the hut. He instantly flew out of the stove, ran across their path and began tearing up piles of frozen snow from all sides. A snowstorm arose. The air turned white. The snow rushed back and forth like a net and threatened to cover the eyes, mouths and ears of pedestrians. And the devil flew away again into the chimney, in the firm belief that Chub would return back with his godfather, find the blacksmith and reprimand him so that for a long time he would not be able to pick up a brush and paint offensive caricatures.
In fact, as soon as the blizzard arose and the wind began to cut straight into his eyes, Chub already expressed repentance and, pulling his caps deeper onto his head, treated himself, the devil and his godfather to scoldings. However, this annoyance was feigned. Chub was very happy about the blizzard. There was still eight times more distance left to reach the clerk than the distance they had covered. The travelers turned back. The wind was blowing at the back of my head; but nothing was visible through the blowing snow.
Stop, godfather! “It seems we’re going the wrong way,” Chub said, walking away a little, “I don’t see a single hut.” Oh, what a snowstorm! Turn a little to the side, godfather, and see if you can find the road; In the meantime, I'll look here. The evil spirit will force you to trudge through such a blizzard! Don't forget to scream when you find your way. Eh, what a heap of snow Satan has thrown into his eyes!
The road, however, was not visible. The godfather, stepping aside, wandered back and forth in long boots and finally came straight to a tavern. This find made him so happy that he forgot everything and, shaking off the snow, entered the hallway, not in the least worrying about the godfather who remained on the street. It seemed to Chub that he had found the way; stopping, he began to shout at the top of his lungs, but, seeing that his godfather was not there, he decided to go himself.
After walking a little, he saw his hut. Drifts of snow lay near her and on the roof. Flapping his hands, frozen in the cold, he began knocking on the door and shouting commandingly for his daughter to unlock it.
What do you want here? - the blacksmith came out and shouted sternly.
Chub, recognizing the blacksmith's voice, stepped back a little. “Eh, no, this is not my hut,” he said to himself, “a blacksmith will not wander into my hut. Again, if you look closely, it’s not Kuznetsov’s. Whose house would this be? Here you go! didn't recognize it! This is the lame Levchenko, who recently married a young wife. Only his house is similar to mine. That’s why it seemed to me and at first a little strange that I came home so soon. However, Levchenko is now sitting with the clerk, I know that; why a blacksmith?.. E-ge-ge! he goes to see his young wife. That's how! ok!.. now I understand everything.”
Who are you and why are you hanging around under doors? - the blacksmith said more sternly than before and came closer.
“No, I won’t tell him who I am,” thought Chub, “what good, he’ll still beat him up, the damned degenerate!” - and, changing his voice, answered:
It's me, a good man! I came for your amusement to sing a little carol under your windows.
Get the hell out of your carols! - Vakula shouted angrily. - Why are you standing there? Do you hear me, get out this instant!
Chub himself already had this prudent intention; but it seemed to him annoyingly that he was forced to obey the blacksmith’s orders. It seemed as if some evil spirit was pushing his arm and forcing him to say something in defiance.
Why did you really shout like that? - he said in the same voice, - I want to sing carols, and that’s enough!
Hey! Yes, you won’t get tired of words!.. - Following these words, Chub felt a painful blow to his shoulder.
Yes, as I see it, you are already starting to fight! - he said, retreating a little.
Let's go, let's go! - the blacksmith shouted, rewarding Chub with another push.
Let's go, let's go! - the blacksmith shouted and slammed the door.
Look how brave you are! - said Chub, left alone on the street. - Try to come closer! look what! what a big deal! Do you think I won’t find a case against you? No, my dear, I'll go and go straight to the commissar. You will know from me! I won't see that you are a blacksmith and a painter. However, look at the back and shoulders: I think there are blue spots. That must have been a painful beating, you son of the enemy! It’s a pity that it’s cold and I don’t want to take off the cover! Wait, you demonic blacksmith, so that the devil beats both you and your forge, you will dance with me! Look, damned Shibenik! However, now he is not at home. Solokha, I think, is sitting alone. Hm... it's not far from here; I wish I could go! The time is now such that no one will catch us. Maybe even that one will be possible... Look how painfully the damned blacksmith beat him!
Here Chub, scratching his back, went in the other direction. The pleasure that awaited him ahead during his meeting with Solokha lessened the pain a little and made insensitive even the frost that crackled through all the streets, not drowned out by the whistling of the blizzard. From time to time, on his face, whose beard and mustache the blizzard lathered with snow more quickly than any barber, tyrannically grabbing his victim by the nose, a semi-sweet mine appeared. But if, however, the snow had not crossed everything back and forth before our eyes, then for a long time one would have seen how Chub stopped, scratched his back, and said: “The damned blacksmith beat him painfully!” - and set off again.
While the nimble dandy with a tail and a goat's beard was flying out of the chimney and then back into the chimney, the little bag hanging from a sling at his side, in which he hid the stolen month, somehow accidentally got caught in the stove, and the month, using In this case, he flew out through the chimney of Solokhina's hut and smoothly rose through the sky. Everything lit up. The snowstorm was gone. The snow lit up in a wide silver field and was sprinkled with crystal stars. The frost seemed to have warmed up. Crowds of boys and girls showed up with bags. The songs began to ring, and under the rare hut there were no crowds of carolers.
The month shines wonderfully! It’s hard to tell how good it is to hang around on such a night between a bunch of laughing and singing girls and between boys, ready for all the jokes and inventions that a cheerfully laughing night can inspire. It's warm under the thick casing; the frost makes your cheeks burn even more vividly; and in a prank, the evil one himself pushes from behind.
Heaps of girls with bags broke into Chub’s hut and surrounded Oksana. The scream, laughter, and stories deafened the blacksmith. Everyone vying with each other was in a hurry to tell the beauty something new, unloaded bags and showed off the palyanitsa, sausages, dumplings, which they had already collected quite a lot for their carols. Oksana seemed to be in complete pleasure and joy, chatting first with one and then with the other and laughing incessantly. The blacksmith looked with some annoyance and envy at such gaiety and this time cursed the carols, although he himself was crazy about them.
Eh, Odarka! - said the cheerful beauty, turning to one of the girls, - you have new booties! Oh, how good they are! and with gold! It’s good for you, Odarka, you have a person who buys everything for you; and I have no one to get such nice boots.
Don’t worry, my beloved Oksana! - the blacksmith picked up, - I’ll get you the kind of booties that a rare lady wears.
You? - Oksana said, quickly and arrogantly looking at him. - I’ll see where you can get boots that I could put on my leg. Will you bring the same ones that the queen wears?
See what I wanted! - the crowd of girls shouted with laughter.
Yes,” the beauty continued proudly, “be all of you witnesses: if the blacksmith Vakula brings those same booties that the queen wears, then here’s my word that I will marry him right away.”
The girls took the capricious beauty with them.
Laugh, laugh! - said the blacksmith, going out after them. - I laugh at myself! I think, and I can’t figure out where my mind went. She doesn't love me - well, God bless her! as if there is only one Oksana in the whole world. Thank God, there are many good girls in the village even without her. What about Oksana? she will never be a good housewife; She's just a master of dressing up. No, that's enough, it's time to stop fooling around.
But at the very time when the blacksmith was preparing to be decisive, some evil spirit carried before him the laughing image of Oksana, who said mockingly: “Get, blacksmith, the Tsarina’s booties, I will marry you!” Everything in him was worried, and he thought only about Oksana.
Crowds of carolers, boys especially, girls especially, hurried from one street to another. But the blacksmith walked and saw nothing and did not participate in the fun that he once loved more than anyone else.
Meanwhile, the devil had seriously softened up with Solokha: he kissed her hand with such antics as an assessor at a priest’s office, grabbed her heart, groaned and said bluntly that if she did not agree to satisfy his passions and, as usual, reward him, then he was ready to everything: he will throw himself into the water, and send his soul straight into the inferno. Solokha was not so cruel, and besides, the devil, as you know, acted in concert with her. She still loved to see the crowd trailing behind her and was rarely without company; This evening, however, I thought I would spend alone, because all the eminent inhabitants of the village were invited to the clerk’s kutya. But everything went differently: the devil had just presented his demand, when suddenly the voice of the hefty head was heard. Solokha ran to open the door, and the nimble devil climbed into the lying bag.
The head, shaking off the snow from his droplets and drinking a glass of vodka from Solokha’s hands, said that he did not go to the clerk because a snowstorm had arisen; and seeing the light in her hut, he turned to her, intending to spend the evening with her.
Before the head had time to say this, a knock and the clerk’s voice were heard at the door.
“Hide me somewhere,” the head whispered. - I don’t want to meet the clerk now.
Solokha thought for a long time about where to hide such a dense guest; finally she chose the largest bag of coal; coal was poured into a tub, and the hefty head, with mustache, head and caplets, climbed into the bag.
The clerk came in, grunting and rubbing his hands, and said that he had no one and that he was sincerely glad of this opportunity to walk a little with her and was not afraid of the blizzard. Then he came closer to her, coughed, grinned, touched her naked with his long fingers with a full hand and said with an expression that showed both slyness and self-satisfaction:
What do you have, magnificent Solokha? - And having said this, he jumped back a little.
Like what? Hand, Osip Nikiforovich! - Solokha answered.
Hm! hand! heh! heh! heh! - said the clerk, heartily pleased with his start, and walked around the room.
And what do you have, dearest Solokha? - he said with the same look, approaching her again and grabbing her lightly by the neck with his hand, and jumping back in the same manner.
As if you don’t see, Osip Nikiforovich! - Solokha answered. - Neck, and on the neck there is a monisto.
Hm! Monisto on the neck! heh! heh! heh! - And the clerk again walked around the room, rubbing his hands.
And what do you have, incomparable Solokha?.. - It is not known what the clerk would now touch with his long fingers, when suddenly there was a knock on the door and the voice of the Cossack Chub.
Oh, my God, a third party! - the clerk shouted in fright. - What now if they find a person of my rank?.. It will reach Father Kondrat!..
But the clerk’s fears were of a different kind: he was afraid, moreover, that his half would not recognize him, who, with their already terrible hand, had made the narrowest of his thick braids.
For God’s sake, virtuous Solokha,” he said, trembling all over. - Your kindness, as Luke’s scripture says, the head of the trin... trin... They are knocking, by God, they are knocking! Oh, hide me somewhere!
Solokha poured coal into a tub from another bag, and the sexton, who was not too bulky in body, climbed into it and sat down at the very bottom, so that another half a bag of coal could be poured on top of it.
Hello, Solokha! - said Chub, entering the hut. - Maybe you weren’t expecting me, huh? I really didn't expect it? maybe I got in the way?..” Chub continued, showing a cheerful and significant expression on his face, which made it clear in advance that his clumsy head was working and preparing to let out some caustic and intricate joke. - Maybe you were having fun with someone here?.. maybe you’ve already hidden someone, huh? - And, delighted with this remark of his, Chub laughed, inwardly triumphant that he alone enjoyed Solokha’s favor. - Well, Solokha, let me drink some vodka now. I think my throat is frozen from the damn cold. God sent such a night before Christmas! How I grabbed it, do you hear, Solokha, how I grabbed it... my hands are numb: I can’t unfasten the casing! how the blizzard hit...
“Someone is knocking,” said Chub, who stopped.
Open it! - they shouted louder than before.
It's a blacksmith! - Chub said, clutching his caps. - Do you hear, Solokha, take me wherever you want; I wouldn’t want for anything in the world to show myself to this damned degenerate, so that he, the devil’s son, would have a bubble the size of a shock under both eyes!
Solokha, frightened herself, rushed about like mad and, having forgotten herself, gave a sign to Chub to climb into the very bag in which the clerk was already sitting. The poor clerk did not even dare to cough and grunt in pain when a heavy man sat almost on his head and placed his boots, frozen in the cold, on both sides of his temples.
The blacksmith entered without saying a word, without taking off his hat, and almost fell onto the bench. It was noticeable that he was quite out of sorts.
Just as Solokha closed the door behind him, someone knocked again. It was the Cossack Sverbyguz. This could no longer be hidden in a bag, because such a bag could not be found. He was heavier than the body of the head and taller Chubova godmother. And so Solokha took him out into the garden to hear from him everything that he wanted to tell her.
The blacksmith absentmindedly looked around the corners of his hut, listening from time to time to the distant songs of carolers; Finally his eyes focused on the bags: “Why are these bags lying here? It’s time to remove them from here long ago. This stupid love has made me completely stupid. Tomorrow is a holiday, and all sorts of rubbish is still lying in the house. Take them to the forge!”
Here the blacksmith sat down to the huge bags, tied them up tightly and was preparing to put them on his shoulders. But it was noticeable that his thoughts were wandering God knows where, otherwise he would have heard Chub hiss when the hair on his head was tied by the rope that tied the bag, and the hefty head began to hiccup quite clearly.
Will this worthless Oksana really not get out of my mind? - said the blacksmith, - I don’t want to think about her; but everyone thinks, and, as if on purpose, about her alone. Why is it so that thoughts creep into your head against your will? What the hell, the bags seem to be heavier than before! There must be something else here besides coal. I'm a fool! and forgot that now everything seems harder to me. Previously, it happened that I could bend and straighten a copper coin and a horse’s shoe in one hand; and now I won’t lift bags of coal. Soon I will fall from the wind. No,” he cried, after a pause and became emboldened, “what kind of woman am I!” I won't let anyone laugh at me! At least ten of these bags, I’ll lift them all. - And he cheerfully heaved bags onto his shoulders that two hefty men would not have carried. “Take this one too,” he continued, picking up the small one, at the bottom of which lay the devil curled up. “I think I put my instrument here.” - Having said this, he left the hut, whistling a song:
I don’t mess with the woman...
Songs and screams were heard louder and louder through the streets. The crowds of jostling people were increased by those who came from neighboring villages. The boys were naughty and crazy to their heart's content. Often, between the carols, some cheerful song was heard, which one of the young Cossacks immediately managed to compose. Then suddenly one of the crowd, instead of a carol, let out a shchedrovka and roared at the top of his lungs:
Shchedrik, bucket! !
Give me the dumpling!
A little breast of porridge!
Kilce cowboys!
Laughter rewarded the entertainer. Small windows rose, and the lean hand of the old woman, who alone remained in the huts with their sedate fathers, stuck out of the window with a sausage in her hands or a piece of pie. Boys and girls vied with each other to set up their bags and catch their prey. In one place, the boys, having entered from all sides, surrounded a crowd of girls: noise, screaming, one threw a lump of snow, another snatched a bag with all sorts of things. In another place, the girls caught a boy, put their foot on him, and he flew headlong to the ground along with the bag. It seemed like they were ready to party all night long. And the night, as if on purpose, glowed so luxuriously! and the light of the month seemed even whiter from the shine of the snow.
The blacksmith stopped with his bags. He imagined Oksana’s voice and thin laughter in the crowd of girls. All the veins in him trembled; Throwing the bags on the ground so that the clerk who was at the bottom groaned from the bruise and hiccupped at the top of his lungs, he wandered with a small bag on his shoulders along with a crowd of boys walking behind the crowd of girls, among whom he heard Oksana’s voice.
“So, it’s her! she stands like a queen and her black eyes sparkle! A prominent young man is telling her something; That's right, funny because she laughs. But she always laughs." As if involuntarily, without understanding how, the blacksmith pushed through the crowd and stood near it.
Ah, Vakula, you are here! Hello! - said the beauty with the same grin that almost drove Vakula crazy. - Well, have you caroled a lot? Eh, what a small bag! Did you get the booties that the queen wears? get some boots, I'll get married! - And, laughing, she ran away with the crowd.
The blacksmith stood rooted to the spot in one place. “No, I can’t; “I have no strength anymore...” he finally said. - But my God, why is she so damn good? Her look, and her speech, and everything, well, it burns, it burns... No, I can’t overcome myself anymore! It’s time to put an end to everything: lose your soul, I’ll go drown myself in a hole, and remember my name!”
Then he walked forward with a decisive step, caught up with the crowd, caught up with Oksana and said in a firm voice:
Goodbye Oksana! Look for the kind of groom you want, fool whoever you want; and you will never see me again in this world.
The beauty seemed surprised and wanted to say something, but the blacksmith waved his hand and ran away.
Where to, Vakula? - the boys shouted, seeing the blacksmith running.
Farewell, brothers! - the blacksmith shouted in response. - God willing, see you in the next world; and now we can no longer walk together. Farewell, do not remember badly! Tell Father Kondrat to perform a memorial service for my sinful soul. Candles for the icons of the miracle worker and the Mother of God, a sinner, did not detract from worldly affairs. All the good that is in my hiding place goes to the church! Farewell!
Having said this, the blacksmith began to run again with the bag on his back.
He's damaged! - the boys said.
Lost soul! - an old woman passing by muttered piously. - Go tell me how the blacksmith hanged himself!
Meanwhile, Vakula, having run through several streets, stopped to catch his breath. “Where am I really running? - he thought, - as if everything was already lost. I’ll try another remedy: I’ll go to the Cossack Pot-bellied Patsyuk. He, they say, knows all the devils and will do whatever he wants. I’ll go, because my soul will still have to disappear!”
At this, the devil, who had been lying for a long time without any movement, jumped in the sack for joy; but the blacksmith, thinking that he had somehow caught the bag with his hand and made this movement himself, hit the bag with a strong fist and, shaking it on his shoulders, went to Pot-bellied Patsyuk.
This Pot-bellied Patsyuk was definitely once a Cossack; but whether he was kicked out or he himself ran away from Zaporozhye, no one knew. It’s been a long time, ten years, maybe even fifteen, since he lived in Dikanka. At first he lived like a real Cossack: he worked nothing, slept three-quarters of the day, ate for six mowers and drank almost a whole bucket at a time; however, there was room to fit in, because Patsyuk, despite his small stature, was quite heavy in width. Moreover, the trousers he wore were so wide that, no matter how big a step he took, his legs were completely unnoticeable, and it seemed as if the distillery was moving down the street. Maybe this is what gave rise to calling him Pot-bellied. Within a few days of his arrival in the village, everyone already knew that he was a healer. If anyone was sick with anything, he immediately called Patsyuk; and Patsyuk only had to whisper a few words, and the illness seemed to go away with his hand. Did it happen that a hungry nobleman choked on a fish bone? Patsyuk knew how to punch him in the back so skillfully that the bone went where it should without causing any harm to the nobleman’s throat. IN lately he was rarely seen anywhere. The reason for this was, perhaps, laziness, or perhaps also the fact that getting through doors was becoming more difficult for him every year. Then the laity had to go to him themselves if they needed him.
The blacksmith, not without timidity, opened the door and saw Patsyuk sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of a small tub on which stood a bowl of dumplings. This bowl stood, as if on purpose, level with his mouth. Without moving a single finger, he tilted his head slightly towards the bowl and slurped the liquid, occasionally grabbing dumplings with his teeth.
“No, this one,” Vakula thought to himself, “is even lazier than Chub: he, at least, eats with a spoon, but this one doesn’t even want to raise his hands!”
Patsyuk must have been very busy making dumplings, because he seemed not to notice at all the arrival of the blacksmith, who, as soon as he stepped on the threshold, gave him a low bow.
I have come to your mercy, Patsyuk! - Vakula said, bowing again.
Fat Patsyuk raised his head and began slurping dumplings again.
“You, they say, don’t say it out of anger...” the blacksmith said, gathering his courage, “I’m not talking about this to cause you any offense, - you’re a little like the devil.”
Having uttered these words, Vakula was frightened, thinking that he had still expressed himself bluntly and had little softened his strong words, and, expecting that Patsyuk, having grabbed the tub and bowl, would send it straight to his head, he moved away a little and covered himself with his sleeve so that the hot liquid from the dumplings didn't splash his face.
But Patsyuk looked and began slurping dumplings again. Encouraged, the blacksmith decided to continue:
Patsyuk has come to you, God grant you everything, all kinds of good things in abundance, bread in proportion! - The blacksmith sometimes knew how to screw in a fashionable word; He became proficient in this when he was still in Poltava, when he painted the centurion’s plank fence. - I, the sinner, have to disappear! nothing helps in the world! What will happen will happen, you have to ask the devil himself for help. Well, Patsyuk? - said the blacksmith, seeing his constant silence, - what should I do?
When you need the devil, then go to hell! - Patsyuk answered, without raising his eyes to him and continuing to remove the dumplings.
That’s why I came to you,” answered the blacksmith, bowing, “besides you, I think no one in the world knows the way to him.”
Patsyuk didn’t say a word and finished the rest of the dumplings.
Do me a favor, good man, don’t refuse! - the blacksmith advanced, - whether pork, sausages, buckwheat flour, well, linen, millet or other things, if necessary... as is usually the case among good people... we will not be stingy. Tell me, roughly, how to get on his way?
“He who has the devil behind him doesn’t have to go far,” Patsyuk said indifferently, without changing his position.
Vakula fixed his eyes on him, as if the explanation of these words were written on his forehead. "What is he saying?" - Mina silently asked him; and the half-open mouth was preparing to swallow the first word like a dumpling. But Patsyuk was silent.
Then Vakula noticed that there were neither dumplings nor a tub in front of him; but instead there were two wooden bowls on the floor: one was filled with dumplings, the other with sour cream. His thoughts and eyes involuntarily turned to these dishes. “Let's see,” he said to himself, “how Patsyuk will eat dumplings. He probably won’t want to bend over to slurp it like dumplings, but he can’t: you need to dip the dumplings in sour cream first.”
As soon as he had time to think this, Patsyuk opened his mouth, looked at the dumplings and opened his mouth even more. At this time, the dumpling splashed out of the bowl, plopped into the sour cream, turned over to the other side, jumped up and just landed in his mouth. Patsyuk ate it and opened his mouth again, and the dumpling went out again in the same order. He only took on the labor of chewing and swallowing.
“Look, what a miracle!” - thought the blacksmith, his mouth open in surprise, and at the same time he noticed that the dumpling was climbing into his mouth and was already showing sour cream on his lips. Having pushed away the dumpling and wiped his lips, the blacksmith began to think about what miracles there are in the world and what wisdom evil spirits bring a person to, noting that only Patsyuk could help him. “I’ll bow to him again, let him explain it thoroughly... But what the hell! After all, today is a hungry Kutya, and he eats dumplings, skoromny dumplings! What a fool I really am, standing here and getting into trouble! Back!" And the devout blacksmith ran headlong out of the hut.
However, the devil, who was sitting in the sack and already rejoicing in advance, could not bear to see such a glorious booty leave his hands. As soon as the blacksmith lowered the bag, he jumped out of it and sat astride his neck.
The frost hit the blacksmith's skin; frightened and pale, he did not know what to do; already wanted to cross himself... But the devil, tilting his dog’s snout towards his right ear, said:
It’s me, your friend, I’ll do anything for my comrade and friend! I’ll give you as much money as you want,” he squeaked in his left ear. “Oksana will be ours today,” he whispered, turning his muzzle back to his right ear.
The blacksmith stood thinking.
If you please,” he finally said, “for such a price I’m ready to be yours!”
The devil clasped his hands and began to gallop with joy on the blacksmith’s neck. “Now we’ve got a blacksmith! - he thought to himself, - now I’ll take it out on you, my dear, all your pictures and fables, raised against the devils! What will my comrades say now when they find out that the most pious man in the entire village is in my hands?” Here the devil laughed with joy, remembering how he would tease the entire tailed tribe in hell, how the lame devil, who was considered the first among them to come up with inventions, would rage.
Well, Vakula! - the devil squeaked, still not getting off his neck, as if afraid that he would run away, - you know that they don’t do anything without a contract.
I'm ready! - said the blacksmith. - I heard that you sign with blood; wait, I'll get a nail in my pocket! - Then he put his hand back and grabbed the devil by the tail.
Look, what a joker! - the devil shouted, laughing. - Well, that's enough, enough of this naughtiness!
Wait, my dear! - shouted the blacksmith, - but how does this seem to you? - At this word he created a cross, and the devil became as quiet as a lamb. “Wait,” he said, pulling him to the ground by the tail, “you will learn from me to teach good people and honest Christians to commit sins!” - Then the blacksmith, without letting go of his 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 everything you need, just let your soul go to repentance: don’t put a terrible cross on me!
Where? - said the sad devil.
To Petersburg, straight to the queen!
And the blacksmith was stupefied with fear, feeling himself rising into the air.
Oksana stood for a long time, thinking about the strange speeches of the blacksmith. Something inside her already said that she had treated him too cruelly. What if he actually decides to do something terrible? “What good! Maybe out of grief he will decide to fall in love with someone else and, out of annoyance, will begin to call her the first beauty in the village? But no, he loves me. I'm so good! He won't change me for anything; he's playing pranks, pretending. In less than ten minutes he will probably come to look at me. I'm really harsh. You need to let him kiss you, as if reluctantly. He’ll be happy!” And the flighty beauty was already joking with her friends.
Wait,” said one of them, “the blacksmith forgot his bags; look how scary these bags are! He did not carol like us: I think they threw a whole quarter of a ram here; and the sausages and breads are truly endless! Luxury! You can overeat all holidays.
Are these blacksmith bags? - Oksana picked up. “Let’s quickly drag them to my house and take a good look at what he put here.”
Everyone laughed and approved of this proposal.
But we won't raise them! - the whole crowd suddenly shouted, trying to move the bags.
Wait,” said Oksana, “let’s quickly run for the sled and take it on the sled!”
And the crowd ran for the sled.
The prisoners were very bored sitting in the bags, despite the fact that the clerk poked a sizeable hole for himself with his finger. If there were still no people there, then perhaps he would have found a way to get out; but to get out of the bag in front of everyone, to expose himself to laughter... this held him back, and he decided to wait, only grunting slightly under Chub’s impolite boots. Chub himself no less desired freedom, feeling that beneath him lay something that was awkward to sit on. But as soon as he heard his daughter’s decision, he calmed down and did not want to get out, reasoning that he needed to walk at least a hundred steps to his hut, and maybe another. Having got out, you need to recover, fasten the casing, tie your belt - so much work! and the droplets remained with Solokha. It’s better to let the girls take you on a sled. But it didn’t happen at all as Chub expected. While the girls ran to get the sled, the thin godfather came out of the tavern, upset and out of sorts. Shinkarka did not in any way dare to trust him in debt; he wanted to wait, perhaps some pious nobleman would come and treat him; but, as if on purpose, all the nobles stayed at home and, like honest Christians, ate kutya in the midst of their household. Thinking about the corruption of morals and the wooden heart of a Jewish woman selling wine, the godfather came across the bags and stopped in amazement.
Look, what bags someone threw on the road! - he said, looking around, - there must be pork here too. Someone was lucky enough to carol about so many things! What scary bags! Let's assume that they are filled with buckwheat and shortbread, and that's fine. At least there were only palyanitsa here, and that was a shmak: for every palyanitsa the Jew gives an octagon of vodka. Drag him away quickly, so that no one sees. - Then he shouldered the sack with Chub and the clerk, but felt that it was too heavy. “No, it will be hard to carry alone,” he said, “but, as if on purpose, the weaver Shapuvalenko is coming.” Hello, Ostap!
“Hello,” said the weaver, stopping.
Where are you going?
And so, I go where my feet go.
Help me, good man, take down the bags! someone was caroling and left it in the middle of the road. Let's split in half.
Bags? What are the bags with, knishes or palyanits?
Yes, I think there is everything.
Then they quickly pulled the sticks out of the fence, put a sack on them and carried them on their shoulders.
Where will we take it? to the tavern? - asked the dear weaver.
I would have thought so too, to go to the tavern; but the damned Jew won’t believe it, she’ll also think that it was stolen somewhere; besides, I just came from a tavern. - We'll take it to my house. No one will disturb us: Zhinka is not at home.
Are you sure there is no home? - asked the cautious weaver.
Thank God, we are not completely crazy yet,” said the godfather, “the devil would bring me to where she is.” She, I think, will trudge with the women until daylight.
Who's there? - the godfather's wife shouted, hearing the noise in the entryway made by the arrival of two friends with a bag, and opening the door.
The godfather was dumbfounded.
Here you go! - said the weaver, lowering his hands.
The godfather's wife was such a treasure, of which there are many in this world. Just like her husband, she almost never sat at home and groveled almost all day with gossips and wealthy old women, praised and ate with great appetite and fought only in the mornings with her husband, because at that time she only saw him sometimes. Their hut was twice as old as the volost clerk's trousers, the roof in some places was without straw. Only the remains of the fence were visible, because everyone who left the house never took a stick for the dogs, in the hope that he would pass by the godfather's garden and pull out any of his fence. The stove was not lit for three days. Whatever the gentle wife asked from kind people, she hid as far as possible from her husband and often arbitrarily took away his spoils if he did not have time to drink it in a tavern. The godfather, despite his usual composure, did not like to give in to her and therefore almost always left the house with lanterns under both eyes, and his dear half, groaning, trudged off to tell the old women about the outrages of her husband and about the beatings she had suffered from him.
Now you can imagine how puzzled the weaver and godfather were by such an unexpected phenomenon. Having lowered the bag, they stepped over it and covered it with the floors; but it was already too late: although the godfather’s wife saw poorly with her old eyes, she nevertheless noticed the bag.
This is good! - she said with an expression in which the joy of a hawk was noticeable. - It’s good that you caroled so much! This is what good people always do; But no, I think they picked it up somewhere. Show me now, do you hear, show me your bag this very hour!
“The bald devil will show you, not us,” said the godfather, becoming dignified.
What do you care? - said the weaver, - we caroled, not you.
No, you show me, you worthless drunkard! - the wife cried, hitting the tall godfather in the chin with her fist and making her way to the bag.
But the weaver and godfather bravely defended the bag and forced her to retreat back. Before they had time to recover, the wife ran out into the hallway with a poker in her hands. She quickly grabbed her husband's hands with the poker and the weaver's back and was already standing near the sack.
Why did we let it happen? - said the weaver, waking up.
Eh, what did we do! why did you allow it? - said the godfather coolly.
Apparently your poker is made of iron! - said the weaver after a short silence, scratching his back. - My wife bought a poker at the fair last year, gave her some beer, and it didn’t hurt... it didn’t hurt.
Meanwhile, the triumphant wife, having placed the kagan on the floor, untied the bag and looked into it. But, it’s true, her old eyes, which saw the bag so well, were deceived this time.
Eh, there’s a whole boar lying here! - she screamed, clapping her hands with joy.
Boar! Do you hear, a whole boar! - the weaver pushed the godfather. - It’s all your fault!
What to do! - said the godfather, shrugging his shoulders.
Like what? what are we worth? Let's take the bag! Well, get started!
Go away! let's go! this is our boar! - the weaver shouted, speaking.
Go, go, damn woman! This is not your good! - said the godfather, approaching.
The wife began to work on the poker again, but at that time Chub climbed out of the bag and stood in the middle of the hallway, stretching, like a man who had just awakened from a long sleep.
The godfather's wife screamed, hitting the floor with her hands, and everyone involuntarily opened their mouths.
Well, she, the fool, says: boar! This is not a boar! - said the godfather, bulging his eyes.
Look, what a man was thrown into a bag! - said the weaver, backing away in fear. - Say whatever you want, even burst out, but it won’t go without evil spirits. After all, he won’t fit through the window!
This is godfather! - the godfather cried out, looking closely.
Who did you think? - Chub said, grinning. - What, did I pull a nice trick on you? And you probably wanted to eat me instead of pork? Wait, I’ll please you: there’s something else in the bag - if not a wild boar, then probably a pig or other living creature. Something was constantly moving under me.
The weaver and godfather rushed to the sack, the mistress of the house clung to the opposite side, and the fight would have resumed again if the clerk, now seeing that he had nowhere to hide, had not climbed out of the sack.
The godfather's wife, dumbfounded, let go of her leg, by which she began to pull the clerk out of the bag.
Here's another one! - the weaver cried out in fear, - the devil knows how things have become in the world... my head is spinning... not sausages and not scorched eggs, but people being thrown into sacks!
This is a clerk! - said Chub, who was more amazed than anyone else. - Here you go! oh yeah Solokha! put her in a bag... Well, I see she has a house full of bags... Now I know everything: she had two people in each bag. And I thought that she was just for me... Here's Solokha for you!
The girls were a little surprised not to find one bag. “There’s nothing to do, we’ll have enough of this,” Oksana babbled. Everyone began to grab the bag and put it on the sled.
The head decided to remain silent, reasoning: if he screamed to be let out and to untie the bag, the stupid girls would run away, think that the devil was sitting in the bag, and he would remain on the street, perhaps until tomorrow.
Meanwhile, the girls, holding hands together, flew like a whirlwind, with a sled through the crunchy snow. A lot of people sat down on the sleds, fooling around; others climbed onto the head itself. The head decided to demolish everything. Finally they drove by, opened wide the doors to the entryway and the hut, and with laughter they dragged in the bag.
Let’s see, there’s something lying here,” everyone shouted, rushing to untie it.
Then the hiccups, which never ceased to torment his head the entire time he was sitting in the bag, became so intense that he began to hiccup and cough at the top of his lungs.
Oh, someone is sitting here! - everyone shouted and rushed out of the door in fright.
What the hell! where are you running around like crazy? - said Chub, entering the door.
Oh, dad! - said Oksana, - someone is sitting in the bag!
In a bag? where did you get this bag?
The blacksmith threw him in the middle of the road, everyone said suddenly.
“Well, then, didn’t I say?...” Chub thought to himself.
Why are you afraid? We'll see. Come on, man, please don’t be angry that we don’t call you by name and patronymic, get out of the bag!
The head came out.
Oh! - the girls screamed.
And the head fit right in,” Chub said to himself in bewilderment, measuring him from head to toe, “see how!..!..” he couldn’t say anything more.
The head himself was no less confused and did not know what to start.
It must be cold outside? - he said, turning to Chub.
There is frost,” Chub answered. - Let me ask you, what do you lubricate your boots with, lard or tar?
He didn’t want to say something, he wanted to ask: “How did you, head, get into this bag?” - but he didn’t understand how he said something completely different.
Tar is better! - said the head. - Well, goodbye, Chub! - And, having pulled his caps down, he left the hut.
Why did I foolishly ask what he used to lubricate his boots? - said Chub, looking at the doors through which the head came out. - Oh yes Solokha! put this kind of person in a bag!.. See, damn woman! And I’m a fool... but where is that damn bag?
“I threw it into the corner, there’s nothing else there,” Oksana said.
I know these things, there is nothing! bring him here: there’s another one sitting there! Shake it well... What, no?.. See, damned woman! And to look at her, it’s like a saint, as if she’d never even taken a small meal into her mouth.
But let’s leave Chub to vent his frustration at his leisure and return to the blacksmith, because it’s probably already nine o’clock in the yard.
At first it seemed scary to Vakula when he rose from the ground to such a height that he could no longer see anything below, and flew like a fly right under the moon so that if he had not bent over a little, he would have caught it with his hat. However, a little later he became emboldened and began to make fun of the devil. He was extremely amused by the way the devil sneezed and coughed when he took the cypress cross from his neck and brought it to him. He deliberately raised his hand to scratch his head, and the devil, thinking that they were going to baptize him, flew even faster. Everything was light above. The air was transparent in a light silver fog. Everything was visible, and one could even notice how the sorcerer, sitting in a pot, rushed past them like a whirlwind; how the stars, gathered in a heap, played blind man's buff; how a whole swarm of spirits swirled to the side like a cloud; how the devil dancing during the moon took off his hat when he saw a blacksmith galloping on horseback; how the broom flew back, on which, apparently, the witch had just gone where she needed to go... they met a lot of other rubbish. Everything, seeing the blacksmith, stopped for a minute to look at him and then rushed on again and continued its course; the blacksmith kept flying; and suddenly Petersburg shone before him, all on fire. (Then for some reason there was illumination.) The devil, having flown over the barrier, turned into a horse, and the blacksmith saw himself on a dashing runner in the middle of the street.
My God! knock, thunder, shine; four-story walls are piled on both sides; the clatter of the horse's hooves, the sound of the wheel echoed with thunder and reverberated from four sides; the houses grew and seemed to rise from the ground at every step; the bridges trembled; the carriages flew; the cabbies and postilions shouted; the snow whistled under a thousand sleighs flying from all sides; pedestrians huddled and crowded under houses studded with bowls, and their huge shadows flashed along the walls, their heads reaching pipes and roofs. The blacksmith looked around in amazement in all directions. It seemed to him that all the houses fixed their countless fiery eyes on him and looked. He saw so many gentlemen in cloth-covered fur coats that he did not know whose hat to take off. “My God, how much mischief there is here! - thought the blacksmith. - I think that everyone who walks down the street in a fur coat is either an assessor or an assessor! and those who ride in such wonderful chaises with glass are, when they are not mayors, then, most likely, commissars, and maybe even more.” His words were interrupted by the devil’s question: “Should I go straight to the queen?” “No, it’s scary,” thought the blacksmith. “Somewhere here, I don’t know, the Cossacks, who passed through Dikanka in the fall, landed. They were traveling from Sich with papers to the queen; I would still like to consult with them.”
Hey, Satan, reach into my pocket and lead me to the Cossacks!
The devil lost weight in one minute and became so small that he easily fit into his pocket. And Vakula did not have time to look back when he found himself in front of a large house, entered, without knowing how, onto the stairs, opened the door and leaned back a little from the brilliance, seeing the decorated room; but he was a little encouraged when he recognized those very Cossacks who were passing through Dikanka, sitting on silk sofas, tucking their tarred boots under them, and smoking the strongest tobacco, usually called roots.
Hello, gentlemen! God help you! that's where we met! - said the blacksmith, coming close and bowing to the ground.
What kind of person is there? - the one sitting in front of the blacksmith asked the other one sitting further away.
But you didn’t know? - said the blacksmith, - it’s me, Vakula, the blacksmith! When we passed through Dikanka in the fall, we stayed, God grant you all health and longevity, for almost two days. And then I put a new tire on the front wheel of your cart!
A! - said the same Cossack, - this is the same blacksmith who paints importantly. Hello, fellow countryman, why did God bring you?
And so, I wanted to take a look, they say...
“What a countryman,” said the Zaporozhian, drawing himself up and wanting to show that he could speak Russian, “what a great city?”
The blacksmith did not want to disgrace himself and seem like a novice, moreover, as we had the opportunity to see above, he himself knew a literate language.
Noble province! - he answered indifferently. - There is nothing to say: the houses are chattering, the paintings are hanging across the important ones. Many houses are covered with gold leaf letters to the extreme. Needless to say, wonderful proportion!
The Cossacks, hearing the blacksmith express himself so freely, came to a conclusion that was very favorable to him.
Afterwards we will talk with you, fellow countryman, more; now we are going to the queen now.
To the queen? And be kind, gentleman, take me with you too!
You? - said the Zaporozhian with the look with which an uncle speaks to his four-year-old pupil, asking to be put on a real, big horse. - What will you do there? No, it's not possible. - At the same time, a significant mine was expressed on his face. “Brother, the queen and I will talk about our own things.”
Take it! - the blacksmith insisted. - Ask! - he whispered quietly to the devil, hitting his pocket with his fist.
Before he had time to say this, another Cossack said:
Let's take it, brothers!
Perhaps we'll take it! - said others.
Put on a dress like us.
The blacksmith started to pull on his green jacket, when suddenly the door opened and a man came in with braids and said that it was time to go.
It seemed wonderful to the blacksmith again when he rushed along in a huge carriage, swinging on the springs, when four-story houses ran past him on both sides and the pavement, rattling, seemed to be rolling under the feet of the horses.
“Oh my God, what a light! - the blacksmith thought to himself. “It’s never so light here during the day.”
The carriages stopped in front of the palace. The Cossacks came out, entered the magnificent vestibule and began to climb the brilliantly illuminated staircase.
What a staircase! - the blacksmith whispered to himself, - it’s a pity to trample underfoot. What decorations! Well, they say fairy tales lie! Why the hell are they lying! oh my god, what a railing! what a job! here one piece of iron is worth fifty rubles!
Having already climbed the stairs, the Cossacks walked through the first hall. The blacksmith timidly followed them, fearing at every step he would slip on the parquet floor. Three halls passed, the blacksmith still did not cease to be surprised. Entering the fourth, he involuntarily approached the picture hanging on the wall. It was a pure virgin with a baby in her arms. “What a picture! what a wonderful painting! - he reasoned, - it seems he’s talking! seems to be alive! and the child is holy! and my hands were pressed! and grins, poor thing! and the colors! oh my god, what colors! here the heaps, I think, weren’t even worth a penny, it’s all wildfire and cormorant; and the blue one is burning! important work! the soil must have been caused by bleivas. As surprising as these paintings are, however, this copper handle,” he continued, going up to the door and feeling the lock, “is even more worthy of surprise.” Wow, what a clean job! All this, I think, was done by German blacksmiths for the most expensive prices...”
Perhaps the blacksmith would have been arguing for a long time if the footman with the braid had not pushed him under the arm and reminded him not to lag behind the others. The Cossacks walked through two more halls and stopped. Here they were told to wait. The hall was crowded with several generals in gold-embroidered uniforms. The Cossacks bowed in all directions and stood in a group.
A minute later, a rather stout man in a hetman's uniform and yellow boots entered, accompanied by a whole retinue of majestic stature. His hair was disheveled, one eye was slightly crooked, his face depicted some kind of arrogant majesty, and in all his movements the habit of command was visible. All the generals, who were walking around rather arrogantly in golden uniforms, began to fuss, and with low bows, seemed to catch his every word and even the slightest movement in order to now fly to carry it out. But the hetman did not even pay attention, barely nodded his head and approached the Cossacks.
The Cossacks bowed to their feet.
Are you all here? - he asked drawlingly, pronouncing the words slightly through his nose.
That's it, dad! - answered the Cossacks, bowing again.
Will you remember to speak as I taught you?
No, daddy, let's not forget.
Is this the king? - the blacksmith asked one of the Cossacks.
Where are you going with the king? “It’s Potemkin himself,” he answered.
Voices were heard in another room, and the blacksmith did not know where to turn his eyes from the multitude of ladies in satin dresses with long tails and courtiers in caftans embroidered with gold and with buns at the back. He only saw one shine and nothing more. The Cossacks suddenly all fell to the ground and shouted in one voice:
Have mercy, mom! have mercy!
The blacksmith, not seeing anything, stretched himself out with all his zeal on the floor.
“Stand up,” a commanding and at the same time pleasant voice sounded above them. Some of the courtiers began to fuss and push the Cossacks.
We won't get up, mom! we won't get up! We will die, but we will rise! - the Cossacks shouted.
Potemkin bit his lips, finally came up himself and whispered imperiously to one of the Cossacks. The Cossacks rose.
Then the blacksmith dared to raise his head and saw a short woman standing in front of him, somewhat portly, powdered, with blue eyes, and at the same time that majestic smiling look that was so able to conquer everything and could only belong to one reigning woman.
His Serene Highness promised to introduce me today to my people, whom I have not yet seen,” said the lady with blue eyes, looking at the Cossacks with curiosity. -Are you well kept here? - she continued, coming closer.
Thank you, mom! They provide good food, although the sheep here are not at all like what we have in Zaporozhye - why not live somehow?..
Potemkin winced, seeing that the Cossacks were saying something completely different from what he taught them...
One of the Cossacks, poised, stepped forward:
Have mercy, mom! Why are you destroying faithful people? what made you angry? Have we ever held the hand of a filthy Tatar? Did you agree with Turchin on anything? Have they betrayed you in deed or thought? Why disfavor? We heard before that you are ordering us to build fortresses everywhere; then they listened to you about turning into carabinieri; Now we hear new misfortunes. What is the Zaporozhye army to blame for? or the one who transferred your army through Perekop and helped your generals cut down the Crimeans?..
Potemkin was silent and casually cleaned his diamonds with a small brush, which were studded on his hands.
What do you want? - Ekaterina asked carefully.
The Cossacks looked at each other significantly.
“Now it's time! The queen asks what you want!” - the blacksmith said to himself and suddenly fell to the ground.
Your Royal Majesty, do not order execution, order mercy! What, if it were not said out of anger to your royal grace, are the slippers that are on your feet made? I think not a single Swedish person in any country in the world will be able to do this. My God, what if my little girl wore boots like these!
The Empress laughed. The courtiers laughed too. Potemkin frowned and smiled at the same time. The Cossacks began to push the blacksmith's arm, wondering if he had gone crazy.
Get up! - the empress said affectionately. - If you really want to have such shoes, then it’s not difficult to do. Bring him the most expensive shoes, with gold, this very hour! Really, I really like this simplicity! Here you are,” the empress continued, fixing her eyes on a middle-aged man standing further away from the others with a plump but somewhat pale face, whose modest caftan with large mother-of-pearl buttons showed that he was not one of the courtiers, “an object worthy of your witty pen.” !
You, Your Imperial Majesty, are too merciful. At least Lafontaine is needed here! - answered the man with mother-of-pearl buttons, bowing.
To be honest, I’ll tell you: I’m still crazy about your “Brigadier”. You are an amazingly good reader! However,” the empress continued, turning again to the Cossacks, “I heard that you will never marry in the Sich.
Yes, mom! “You know, a man, you know, can’t live without a woman,” answered the same Cossack who was talking to the blacksmith, and the blacksmith was surprised to hear that this Cossack, knowing the literate language so well, spoke to the queen, as if on purpose, in the most rude manner, as usual called peasant dialect. “Cunning people! - he thought to himself, “it’s true, it’s not for nothing that he does this.”
“We are not monks,” continued the Cossack, “but sinful people.” Fall, like all honest Christianity, to the point of modesty. We have quite a few who have wives, but do not live with them in the Sich. There are those who have wives in Poland; there are those who have wives in Ukraine; There are those who have wives in the Tureshina region.
At this time, shoes were brought to the blacksmith.
My God, what a decoration! - he cried joyfully, grabbing his shoes. - Your Royal Majesty! Well, when you have shoes like these on your feet, and in them, your honor, you hope to go and skate on the ice, what kind of shoes should your feet be? I think at least from pure sugar.
The Empress, who certainly had the most slender and charming legs, could not help but smile, hearing such a compliment from the lips of the simple-minded blacksmith, who in his Zaporozhye dress could be considered handsome, despite his dark face.
Delighted by such favorable attention, the blacksmith already wanted to ask the queen thoroughly about everything: is it true that kings eat only honey and lard, and the like; but, feeling that the Cossacks were pushing him in the sides, he decided to remain silent; and when the empress, turning to the old people, began to ask how they lived in the Sich, what customs there were, he, moving back, bent down to his pocket, said quietly: “Take me out of here quickly!” - and suddenly found himself behind the barrier.
Drowned! By God, he drowned! so that I don’t leave this place if I don’t drown! - the fat weaver babbled, standing among a bunch of Dikan women in the middle of the street.
Well, am I some kind of liar? did I steal someone's cow? Have I jinxed anyone who doesn’t have faith in me? - shouted a woman in a Cossack scroll, with a purple nose, waving her arms. - So that I wouldn’t want to drink water if old Pereperchikha didn’t see with her own eyes how the blacksmith hanged himself!
Did the blacksmith hang himself? here you go! - said the head coming out from Chub, stopped and pushed closer to those talking.
Better tell me so you don’t want to drink vodka, you old drunkard! - answered the weaver, - you have to be as crazy as you to hang yourself! He drowned! drowned in a hole! I know this as well as the fact that you were just now at the tavern.
Disgraceful! Look, what did you start reproaching! - the woman with the purple nose objected angrily. - Be silent, you scoundrel! Don’t I know that the clerk comes to see you every evening?
The weaver flushed.
What is it, clerk? to whom is the clerk? Why are you lying?
Deacon? - the sexton, in a sheepskin coat made of hare fur, covered with a blue Chinese cloth, sang, crowding towards those arguing. - I'll let the clerk know! Who says this - the clerk?
But who does the clerk go to? - said the woman with the purple nose, pointing to the weaver.
So it’s you, bitch,” said the sexton, approaching the weaver, “so it’s you, the witch, who’s fogging him up and feeding him an unclean potion so that he’ll come to you?”
Get away from me, Satan! - said the weaver, backing away.
See, damned witch, don’t wait to see your children, you wretch! Ugh!.. - Here the sexton spat right in the weaver’s eyes.
The weaver wanted to do the same to herself, but instead she spat in the unshaven beard of the head, which, in order to hear everything better, got close to those arguing.
Ah, bad woman! - shouted the head, wiping his face with the hollow and raising his whip. This movement caused everyone to disperse with curses in different sides. - What an abomination! - he repeated, continuing to dry himself. - So the blacksmith drowned! My God, what an important painter he was! What strong knives, sickles, plows he knew how to forge! What a power that was! Yes,” he continued, thoughtfully, “there are few such people in our village.” That’s why I, while still sitting in the damned sack, noticed that the poor thing was in a bad mood. Here's a blacksmith for you! I was, and now I’m not! And I was about to shoe my speckled mare!..
And, being full of such Christian thoughts, the head quietly wandered into his hut.
Oksana was embarrassed when such news reached her. She had little faith in the eyes of Pereperchikha and the rumors of the women; she knew that the blacksmith was quite devout to decide to destroy his soul. But what if he actually left with the intention of never returning to the village? And it’s unlikely that anywhere else you’ll find such a fine fellow as the blacksmith! He loved her so much! He endured her whims the longest! The beauty turned all night under her blanket from right to left, from left to right - and could not sleep. Then, scattered about in the enchanting nakedness that the darkness of the night hid even from herself, she almost aloud scolded herself; then, having calmed down, she decided not to think about anything - and kept thinking. And everything was burning; and by morning she fell head over heels in love with the blacksmith.
Chub expressed neither joy nor sadness about Vakula’s fate. His thoughts were occupied with one thing: he could not forget Solokha’s treachery and, sleepy, did not stop scolding her.
It's morning. The whole church was full of people even before the light. Elderly women in white mittens and white cloth scrolls devoutly crossed themselves at the very entrance of the church. Noblewomen in green and yellow jackets, and some even in blue kuntushas with golden back mustaches, stood in front of them. The girls, who had a whole shop of ribbons wrapped around their heads and monistas, crosses and ducats around their necks, tried to get even closer to the iconostasis. But ahead of everyone were nobles and simple men with mustaches, forelocks, thick necks and freshly shaved chins, most of them wearing kobenyaks, from under which a white scroll showed, and some had a blue scroll. Celebration was visible on all the faces, no matter where you looked. He licked his head, imagining how he would break his fast with sausage; the girls thought about how they would skate with the boys on the ice; The old women whispered prayers more diligently than ever. Throughout the church one could hear the Cossack Sverbyguz bowing. Only Oksana stood as if not herself: she prayed and did not pray. There were so many different feelings crowded into her heart, one more annoying than the other, one sadder than the other, that her face expressed nothing but intense embarrassment; tears trembled in my eyes. The girls could not understand the reason for this and did not suspect that the blacksmith was to blame. However, Oksana was not the only one busy with the blacksmith. All the laity noticed that the holiday seemed to be not a holiday; that everything seems to be missing something. As luck would have it, the clerk, after traveling in the sack, became hoarse and rattled in a barely audible voice; True, the visiting singer played the bass nicely, but it would have been much better if there had been a blacksmith, who always used to, as soon as they sang “Our Father” or “Like the Cherubim,” climb onto the wing and lead out from there in the same tune as they sing and in Poltava. In addition, he alone corrected the position of church titar. Matins has already departed; after matins, mass departed... where, in fact, had the blacksmith disappeared to?
During the rest of the night the devil and the blacksmith rushed back even faster. And instantly Vakula found himself near his hut. At this time the rooster crowed. "Where? - he shouted, grabbing the tail of the devil who wanted to run away, “wait, buddy, that’s not all: I haven’t thanked you yet.” Here, grabbing a twig, he gave him three blows, and the poor devil began to run, like a man who had just been steamed by an assessor. So, instead of deceiving, seducing and fooling others, the enemy of the human race was himself fooled. After this, Vakula entered the hallway, buried himself in the hay and slept until lunch. Waking up, he was frightened when he saw that the sun was already high: “I slept through Matins and Mass!” Here the pious blacksmith fell into despondency, reasoning that it was probably God who had deliberately, as punishment for his sinful intention to destroy his soul, sent a dream that prevented even him from attending such a solemn holiday in the church. But, however, having calmed himself with the fact that next week he would confess to this priest and from today he would begin to bow fifty times throughout the year, he looked into the hut; but there was no one in it. Apparently, Solokha has not returned yet. He carefully took his shoes out of his bosom and was again amazed at the expensive work and the wonderful incident of the previous night; he washed, dressed as best as possible, put on the same dress that he got from the Cossacks, took out from the chest a new hat from Reshetilovsky smushkas with a blue top, which he had not worn even once since he bought it when he was in Poltava; He also took out a new belt of all colors; He put it all together with the whip in a handkerchief and went straight to Chub.
Chub's eyes bulged when the blacksmith came to him, and did not know what to marvel at: whether the blacksmith had resurrected, or the fact that the blacksmith dared to come to him, or the fact that he had dressed himself up as such a dandy and a Cossack. But he was even more amazed when Vakula untied the scarf and put in front of him a brand new hat and a belt, the likes of which had never been seen in the village, and he fell at his feet and said in a pleading voice:
Have mercy, dad! don't be angry! here’s a whip for you: hit as much as your heart desires, I surrender myself; I repent of everything; Hit me, but don’t be angry! You once fraternized with your late dad, you ate bread and salt together and drank magarych.
Chub, not without secret pleasure, saw how the blacksmith, who didn’t blow anyone’s socks off in the village, bent nickels and horseshoes in his hand like buckwheat pancakes, that same blacksmith lay at his feet.. So as not to drop himself even more, Chub took the whip and hit him three times on the back.
Well, that's it for you, get up! Always listen to old people! Let's forget everything that happened between us! Well, now tell me, what do you want?
Give me Oksana for me, dad!
Chub thought a little, looked at the hat and belt: the hat was wonderful, the belt was also not inferior to it; he remembered the treacherous Solokha and said decisively:
Good! send matchmakers!
Ay! - Oksana screamed, stepping over the threshold and seeing the blacksmith, and stared at him with amazement and joy.
Look what boots I brought you! - said Vakula, - the same ones that the queen wears.
No! No! I don't need booties! “- she said, waving her hands and not taking her eyes off him, “I don’t even have booties...” She didn’t finish further and blushed.
The blacksmith came closer and took her hand; The beauty lowered her eyes. She had never been so wonderfully beautiful. The delighted blacksmith kissed her quietly, and her face lit up even more, and she became even better.
A bishop of blessed memory passed through Dikanka, praised the place on which the village stands, and, driving along the street, stopped in front of a new hut.
Whose painted house is this? - the Eminence asked the woman standing near the door beautiful woman with a child in her arms.
Blacksmith Vakula,” Oksana told him, bowing, because it was she.
Nice! nice job! - said the Reverend, looking at the doors and windows. And the windows were all surrounded with red paint; on the doors everywhere there were Cossacks on horses, with pipes in their teeth.
But the Right Reverend praised Vakula even more when he learned that he had endured church repentance and painted the entire left wing with green paint with red flowers for free. This, however, is not all: on the side wall, as you enter the church, Vakula painted a devil in hell, so disgusting that everyone spat when they passed by; and the women, as soon as the child burst into tears in their arms, brought him to the picture and said: “It’s a big deal, it’s like it’s painted!” - and the child, holding back her tears, glanced sideways at the picture and huddled close to her mother’s chest.
Notes:
1 In our country, caroling means singing songs under the windows on the eve of Christmas, which are called carols. The housewife, or the owner, or whoever stays at home, will always throw sausage, or bread, or a copper penny into the bag of the one who sings carols. They say that there was once a fool Kolyada, who was mistaken for a god, and that this is why carols began. Who knows? It’s not for us, ordinary people, to talk about this. Last year Father Osip forbade caroling in the farmsteads, saying that it was as if these people were pleasing Satan. However, if you tell the truth, then there is not a word about Kolyada in carols. They often sing about the birth of Christ; and at the end they wish health to the owner, hostess, children and the whole house. Beekeeper's note. (Note by N.V. Gogol.)
2 We call a German anyone who is from a foreign land, even if he is a Frenchman, or a Tsar, or a Swede - he is all German. (Note by N.V. Gogol.)
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Stories of an old beekeeper
It's a clear, frosty night on the eve of Christmas. The stars and the moon are shining, the snow is sparkling, smoke is billowing above the chimneys of the huts. This is Dikanka, a tiny village near Poltava. Shall we look through the windows? Over there, the old Cossack Chub has put on a sheepskin coat and is going to visit. There is his daughter, the beautiful Oksana, preening in front of the mirror. There flies into the chimney the charming witch Solokha, a hospitable hostess, whom the Cossack Chub, the village head, and the clerk love to visit. And in that hut, on the edge of the village, an old man sits, puffing on a cradle. But this is the beekeeper Rudy Panko, a master of telling stories! One of his funniest stories is about how the devil stole a month from the sky, and the blacksmith Vakula flew to St. Petersburg to visit the queen.
All of them - Solokha, Oksana, the blacksmith, and even Rudy Panka himself - were invented by the wonderful writer Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol (1809-1852), and there is nothing unusual in the fact that he managed to portray his heroes so accurately and truthfully. Gogol was born in the small village of Velikie Sorochintsy, Poltava province, and from childhood he saw and knew well everything that he later wrote about. His father was a landowner and came from an old Cossack family. Nikolai studied first at the Poltava district school, then at the gymnasium in the city of Nezhin, also not far from Poltava; It was here that he first tried to write.
At the age of nineteen, Gogol left for St. Petersburg, served for some time in the offices, but very soon realized that this was not his calling. He began to publish little by little in literary magazines, and a little later he published his first book, “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka,” a collection amazing stories, as if told by the beekeeper Rudy Panko: about the devil who stole the month, about the mysterious red scroll, about rich treasures that are opened on the night before Ivan Kupala. The collection was a huge success, and A.S. Pushkin really liked it. Gogol soon met him and became friends, and later Pushkin helped him more than once, for example, by suggesting (of course, in the most general outline) the plot of the comedy “The Inspector General” and the poem “Dead Souls”. While living in St. Petersburg, Gogol published the next collection “Mirgorod”, which included “Taras Bulba” and “Viy”, and “Petersburg” stories: “The Overcoat”, “The Stroller”, “The Nose” and others.
Nikolai Vasilyevich spent the next ten years abroad, only occasionally returning to his homeland: little by little he lived in Germany, then in Switzerland, then in France; later he settled in Rome for several years, which he fell in love with very much. The first volume of the poem “Dead Souls” was written here. Gogol returned to Russia only in 1848 and settled at the end of his life in Moscow, in a house on Nikitsky Boulevard.
Gogol is a very versatile writer, his works are so different, but they are united by wit, subtle irony and good humor. For this, Gogol and Pushkin appreciated most of all: “This is real gaiety, sincere, relaxed, without affectation, without stiffness. And in places what poetry! What sensitivity! All this is so unusual in our current literature...”
P. Lemeni-Macedon
The last day before Christmas has passed. A clear winter night has arrived. The stars looked out. The month majestically rose into the sky to shine on good people and the whole world, so that everyone would have fun caroling and praising Christ. It was freezing more than in the morning; but it was so quiet that the crunch of frost under a boot could be heard half a mile away. Not a single crowd of boys had ever appeared under the windows of the huts; for a month he only glanced at them furtively, as if calling the girls who were dressing up to run out quickly into the slippery snow. Then smoke fell in clouds through the chimney of one hut and spread like a cloud across the sky, and along with the smoke a witch rose riding on a broom.
If at that time the Sorochinsky assessor was passing by on a trio of philistine horses, in a hat with a lambswool band, made in the manner of the Uhlans, in a blue sheepskin coat lined with black smushkas, with a devilishly woven whip, with which he is in the habit of urging his coachman on, then he would probably , noticed her, because not a single witch in the world could escape from the Sorochinsky assessor. He knows off the top of his head how many piglets each woman has, and how much linen is in her chest, and what exactly from his clothes and household goods a good man will pawn in a tavern on Sunday. But the Sorochinsky assessor did not pass through, and what does he care about strangers, he has his own parish. Meanwhile, the witch rose so high that she was only a black speck flashing above. But wherever the speck appeared, there the stars, one after another, disappeared from the sky. Soon the witch had a full sleeve of them. Three or four were still shining. Suddenly, on the opposite side, another speck appeared, grew larger, began to stretch, and was no longer a speck. A short-sighted person, even if he had put wheels from the Komissarov chaise on his nose instead of glasses, he would not have recognized what it was. From the front it was completely German: a narrow muzzle, constantly twirling and sniffing everything that came across, ending, like our pigs, in a round snout, the legs were so thin that if Yareskovsky had such a head, he would have broken them in the first Cossack. But behind him he was a real provincial attorney in uniform, because he had a tail hanging, so sharp and long, like today’s uniform coattails; only by the goat beard under his muzzle, by the small horns sticking out on his head, and by the fact that he was no whiter than a chimney sweep, one could guess that he was not a German or a provincial attorney, but just a devil who had his last night left to wander around the world and teach the sins of good people. Tomorrow, with the first bells for matins, he will run without looking back, tail between his legs, to his den.
Meanwhile, the devil was creeping slowly towards the month and was about to stretch out his hand to grab it, but suddenly he pulled it back, as if he had been burned, sucked his fingers, swung his leg and ran on the other side, and again jumped back and pulled his hand away. However, despite all the failures, the cunning devil did not abandon his mischief. Running up, he suddenly grabbed the month with both hands, grimacing and blowing, throwing it from one hand to the other, like a man getting fire for his cradle with his bare hands; Finally, he hastily put it in his pocket and, as if nothing had happened, ran on.
In Dikanka, no one heard how the devil stole the month. True, the volost clerk, leaving the tavern on all fours, saw that he had been dancing in the sky for no reason at all for a month, and assured the whole village of this to God; but the laymen shook their heads and even laughed at him. But what was the reason for the devil to decide on such a lawless deed? And here's what: he knew that the rich Cossack Chub was invited by the clerk to kutya, where they would be: the head; a relative of the clerk in a blue frock coat who came from the bishop's choir and played the lowest bass; Cossack Sverbyguz and some others; where, in addition to kutya, there will be varenukha, saffron-distilled vodka and a lot of other edibles. Meanwhile, his daughter, the beauty of the whole village, will remain at home, and a blacksmith, a strong man and a fellow anywhere, who was damned more disgusting than the sermons of Father Kondrat, will probably come to his daughter. In his spare time from work, the blacksmith was engaged in painting and was known as the best painter in the entire area. The centurion L...ko himself, who was still in good health at that time, deliberately called him to Poltava to paint the board fence near his house. All the bowls from which the Dikan Cossacks drank borscht were painted by a blacksmith. The blacksmith was a God-fearing man and often painted images of saints: and now you can still find his evangelist Luke in the T... church. But the triumph of his art was one painting painted on the church wall in the right vestibule, in which he depicted St. Peter on the day of the Last Judgment, with keys in his hands, expelling an evil spirit from hell; the frightened devil rushed in all directions, anticipating his death, and the previously imprisoned sinners beat and drove him with whips, logs and anything else they could find. While the painter was working on this picture and painting it on a large wooden board, the devil tried with all his might to interfere with him: he pushed him invisibly under his arm, lifted ash from the furnace in the forge and sprinkled it on the picture; but, despite everything, the work was finished, the board was brought into the church and embedded in the wall of the vestibule, and from that time on the devil swore to take revenge on the blacksmith.
There was only one night left for him to wander around in this world; but even that night he was looking for something to take out his anger on the blacksmith. And for this purpose he decided to steal a month, in the hope that old Chub was lazy and not easy-going, but the clerk was not so close to the hut: the road went beyond the village, past the mills, past the cemetery, and went around a ravine. Even on a monthly night, boiled milk and vodka infused with saffron could have lured Chub. But in such darkness it is unlikely that anyone would have been able to pull him off the stove and call him out of the hut. And the blacksmith, who had long been at odds with him, would never dare to go to his daughter in his presence, despite his strength.
Thus, as soon as the devil hid his month in his pocket, suddenly it became so dark all over the world that not everyone could find the way to the tavern, not only to the clerk. The witch, suddenly seeing herself in the darkness, screamed. Then the devil, coming up like a little demon, grabbed her by the arm and began to whisper in her ear the same thing that is usually whispered to the entire female race. Wonderfully arranged in our world! Everything that lives in him tries to adopt and imitate one another. Previously, it used to be that in Mirgorod one judge and the mayor walked around in the winter in cloth-covered sheepskin coats, and all the petty officials wore simply sheepskin coats. Now both the assessor and the sub-committee have polished themselves new fur coats from Reshetilovsky smushkas with a cloth cover. The clerk and the volost clerk took a blue Chinese coin for the third year for six hryvnia arshins. The sexton made himself nankeen trousers and a vest of striped garus for the summer. In a word, everything gets into people! When will these people not be fussy! You can bet that many will find it surprising to see the devil running into the same place. The most annoying thing is that he probably imagines himself handsome, while his figure is ashamed to look at. Erysipelas, as Foma Grigorievich says, is an abomination, an abomination, but he, too, makes love hens! But it became so dark in the sky and under the sky that it was no longer possible to see anything that happened between them.
- So, godfather, you haven’t been to the clerk in the new house yet? - said the Cossack Chub, leaving the door of his hut, to a lean, tall man in a short sheepskin coat with an overgrown beard, showing that for more than two weeks a piece of a scythe, with which men usually shave their beards for lack of a razor, had not touched it. - Now there will be a good drinking party! – Chub continued, grinning his face. - As long as we don’t be late.
At this, Chub straightened his belt, which tightly intercepted his sheepskin coat, pulled his hat tighter, clutched the whip in his hand - the fear and threat of the annoying dogs, but, looking up, he stopped...
- What a devil! Look! look, Panas!..
- What? - said the godfather and raised his head up.
- Like what? no month!
-What an abyss! There really is no month.
“Well, no,” Chub said with some annoyance at his godfather’s constant indifference. - You probably don’t need it.
- What should I do!
“It was necessary,” Chub continued, wiping his mustache with his sleeve, “some devil, so that he wouldn’t have a chance to drink a glass of vodka in the morning, a dog!.. Really, as if for a laugh... On purpose, sitting in the hut, he looked at window: night is a miracle! It’s light, the snow shines in the month. Everything was as visible as day. I didn’t have time to go out the door - and now, at least gouge out my eyes!
Chub grumbled and scolded for a long time, and meanwhile at the same time he was thinking about what to decide on. He was dying to croak about all this nonsense at the clerk's, where, without any doubt, the head, the visiting bass, and the tar Mikita were already sitting, who went every two weeks to Poltava to auction and made such jokes that all the laymen grabbed their stomachs with laughter. Chub already mentally saw the boiled milk standing on the table. It was all tempting, really; but the darkness of the night reminded him of that laziness that is so dear to all Cossacks. How nice it would be now to lie with your legs tucked under you on a couch, calmly smoke a cradle and listen through your delightful drowsiness to carols and songs of cheerful boys and girls crowding in heaps under the windows. He would, without any doubt, have decided on the latter if he had been alone, but now both of them are not so bored and afraid to walk on a dark night, and they didn’t want to appear lazy or cowardly in front of others. Having finished the scolding, he turned again to his godfather:
- So no, godfather, a month?
- Wonderful, really! Let me smell some tobacco. You, godfather, have nice tobacco! Where do you get it?
- What the hell, nice one! - answered the godfather, closing the birch tavlinka, pockmarked with patterns. - The old hen won't sneeze!
“I remember,” Chub continued in the same way, “the late tavern owner Zozulya once brought me tobacco from Nizhyn.” Oh, there was tobacco! it was good tobacco! So, godfather, what should we do? It's dark outside.
“Then, perhaps, we’ll stay at home,” said the godfather, grabbing the door handle.
If his godfather had not said this, then Chub would probably have decided to stay, but now it was as if something was pulling him to go against it.
- No, godfather, let's go! You can't, you have to go!
Having said this, he was already annoyed with himself for what he had said. It was very unpleasant for him to trudge on such a night; but he was consoled by the fact that he himself deliberately wanted this and did not do it as he was advised.
The godfather, without expressing the slightest movement of annoyance on his face, like a man who absolutely does not care whether he sits at home or drags himself out of the house, looked around, scratched his shoulders with his batog stick, and the two godfathers set off on the road.
Now let's see what the beautiful daughter does when left alone. Oksana was not yet seventeen years old, and in almost the entire world, both on the other side of Dikanka and on this side of Dikanka, there was nothing but talk about her. The boys proclaimed in droves that there had never been and never would be a better girl in the village. Oksana knew and heard everything that was said about her, and she was capricious, like a beauty. If she had walked around not in a scaffold and a spare tire, but in some kind of hood, she would have scattered all her girls. The boys chased her in crowds, but, having lost patience, they left little by little and turned to others, who were not so spoiled. Only the blacksmith was stubborn and did not give up his red tape, despite the fact that he was treated no better than others.
After her father left, she spent a long time dressing up and pretending in front of a small mirror in tin frames and could not stop admiring herself.
N.V. Gogol's story "The Night Before Christmas" from the collection "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka" is distinguished by kindness, fabulousness and gentle humor. Both children and adults read with interest about how the devil stole the month, and about how the blacksmith Vakula flew to the queen in St. Petersburg to get slippers for his beloved Oksana.
Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
Christmas Eve
Stories of an old beekeeper
It's a clear, frosty night on the eve of Christmas. The stars and the moon are shining, the snow is sparkling, smoke is billowing above the chimneys of the huts. This is Dikanka, a tiny village near Poltava. Shall we look through the windows? Over there, the old Cossack Chub has put on a sheepskin coat and is going to visit. There is his daughter, the beautiful Oksana, preening in front of the mirror. There flies into the chimney the charming witch Solokha, a hospitable hostess, whom the Cossack Chub, the village head, and the clerk love to visit. And in that hut, on the edge of the village, an old man sits, puffing on a cradle. But this is the beekeeper Rudy Panko, a master of telling stories! One of his funniest stories is about how the devil stole a month from the sky, and the blacksmith Vakula flew to St. Petersburg to visit the queen.
All of them - Solokha, Oksana, the blacksmith, and even Rudy Panka himself - were invented by the wonderful writer Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol (1809-1852), and there is nothing unusual in the fact that he managed to portray his heroes so accurately and truthfully. Gogol was born in the small village of Velikie Sorochintsy, Poltava province, and from childhood he saw and knew well everything that he later wrote about. His father was a landowner and came from an old Cossack family. Nikolai studied first at the Poltava district school, then at the gymnasium in the city of Nezhin, also not far from Poltava; It was here that he first tried to write.
At the age of nineteen, Gogol left for St. Petersburg, served for some time in the offices, but very soon realized that this was not his calling. He began to publish little by little in literary magazines, and a little later he published his first book, “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” - a collection of amazing stories allegedly told by the beekeeper Rudy Panko: about the devil who stole the month, about the mysterious red scroll, about rich treasures that open on the night before Ivan Kupala. The collection was a huge success, and A.S. Pushkin really liked it. Gogol soon met him and became friends, and later Pushkin helped him more than once, for example, by suggesting (of course, in the most general terms) the plot of the comedy “The Inspector General” and the poem “Dead Souls.” While living in St. Petersburg, Gogol published the following collection “Mirgorod”, which included “Taras Bulba” and “Viy”, and “Petersburg” stories: “The Overcoat”, “The Stroller”, “The Nose” and others.
Nikolai Vasilyevich spent the next ten years abroad, only occasionally returning to his homeland: little by little he lived in Germany, then in Switzerland, then in France; later he settled in Rome for several years, which he fell in love with very much. The first volume of the poem "Dead Souls" was written here. Gogol returned to Russia only in 1848 and settled at the end of his life in Moscow, in a house on Nikitsky Boulevard.
Gogol is a very versatile writer, his works are so different, but they are united by wit, subtle irony and good humor. For this, Gogol and Pushkin appreciated most of all: “This is real gaiety, sincere, relaxed, without affectation, without stiffness. And in places, what poetry! What sensitivity! All this is so unusual in our current literature...”
P. Lemeni-Macedon
The last day before Christmas has passed. A clear winter night has arrived. The stars looked out. The month majestically rose into the sky to shine on good people and the whole world, so that everyone would have fun caroling and praising Christ. It was freezing more than in the morning; but it was so quiet that the crunch of frost under a boot could be heard half a mile away. Not a single crowd of boys had ever appeared under the windows of the huts; for a month he only glanced at them furtively, as if calling the girls who were dressing up to run out quickly into the slippery snow. Then smoke fell in clouds through the chimney of one hut and spread like a cloud across the sky, and along with the smoke a witch rose riding on a broom.
If at that time the Sorochinsky assessor was passing by on a trio of philistine horses, in a hat with a lambswool band, made in the manner of the Uhlans, in a blue sheepskin coat lined with black smushkas, with a devilishly woven whip, with which he is in the habit of urging his coachman on, then he would probably , noticed her, because not a single witch in the world could escape from the Sorochinsky assessor. He knows off the top of his head how many piglets each woman has, and how much linen is in her chest, and what exactly from his clothes and household goods a good man will pawn in a tavern on Sunday. But the Sorochinsky assessor did not pass through, and what does he care about strangers, he has his own parish. Meanwhile, the witch rose so high that she was only a black speck flashing above. But wherever the speck appeared, there the stars, one after another, disappeared from the sky. Soon the witch had a full sleeve of them. Three or four were still shining. Suddenly, on the opposite side, another speck appeared, grew larger, began to stretch, and was no longer a speck. A short-sighted person, even if he had put wheels from the Komissarov chaise on his nose instead of glasses, he would not have recognized what it was. From the front it was completely German: a narrow muzzle, constantly twirling and sniffing everything that came across, ending, like our pigs, in a round snout, the legs were so thin that if Yareskovsky had such a head, he would have broken them in the first Cossack. But behind him he was a real provincial attorney in uniform, because he had a tail hanging, so sharp and long, like today’s uniform coattails; only by the goat beard under his muzzle, by the small horns sticking out on his head, and by the fact that he was no whiter than a chimney sweep, one could guess that he was not a German or a provincial attorney, but just a devil who had his last night left to wander around the world and teach the sins of good people. Tomorrow, with the first bells for matins, he will run without looking back, tail between his legs, to his den.
Meanwhile, the devil was creeping slowly towards the month and was about to stretch out his hand to grab it, but suddenly he pulled it back, as if he had been burned, sucked his fingers, swung his leg and ran on the other side, and again jumped back and pulled his hand away. However, despite all the failures, the cunning devil did not abandon his mischief. Running up, he suddenly grabbed the month with both hands, grimacing and blowing, throwing it from one hand to the other, like a man getting fire for his cradle with his bare hands; Finally, he hastily put it in his pocket and, as if nothing had happened, ran on.
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