Nikolay Gogol. Viy
     *Viy  is i colossal creation of folk imagination. This name  is applied
by people in Utlle Russia to the chief of [he gnomes, whose eyelids teach to
the ground. The whole story is a popular legend. 1 did not wish to change it
in any way and tell it almost as simply is 1 heard it. (Author's note)
     As  soon  as the  booming seminary bell that hung by  the gates  of the
Bratsky Monastery in Kiev rang out in  the morning, crowds of schoolboys and
seminarians'   came   hurrying   from   all   over  the  city.  Grammarians,
rhetoricians,  philosophers,  and theologians, notebooks under  their  arms,
trudged to class. The grammarians were still very small; as they walked they
pushed each other and quarreled  among themselves in the  thinnest  trebles;
their  clothes  were  almost  all  torn or  dirty, and  their  pockets  were
eternally fall  of various  sorts of  trash,  such as knucklebones, whistles
made from feathers, unfinished pieces of pie, and occasionally even a little
sparrow that, by chirping suddenly amidst  the extraordinary silence  of the
classroom, would procure  for its patron a decent beating on both hands, and
sometimes the cherrywood  rod. The rhetoricians  walked more sedately: their
clothes were often  perfectly intact,  but  instead their faces  were almost
always adorned with  some rhetorical trope: one  eye completely closed, or a
big  bubble  instead of  a lip, or some other  mark; these  swore by God and
talked  among themselves in tenors. The philosophers dropped  a whole octave
lower:  there was  nothing  in their pockets  except strong, coarse tobacco.
They kept nothing stashed away and ate whatever  came along on the spot; the
smell of pipes and vodka sometimes spread so far around them that  a passing
artisan would stand for a long time sniffing the air like a hound.
     The  marketplace at that time  was usually just  beginning to stir, and
women with bagels, rolls, watermelon seeds, and poppyseed cakes tugged those
who had them by their coattails of thin broadcloth or some sort of cotton.
     "Young sirs!  Young sirs! Here! Here!"  they said on all sides.  "There
are  good  bagels, poppyseed cakes,  twists,  rolls! Fine ones, by God! with
honey! homemade!"
     Another woman, holding up something long made of twisted dough, cried;
     "Here's an icicle, young sirs! Buy an icicle!"
     "Don't  buy anything from that one! Look  how  foul she is--her nose is
awful and her hands are dirty . . ."
     But  they  were  afraid to  pester  the  philosophers and  theologians,
because the  philosophers and theologians liked to sample things, and always
by the handful.
     On  reaching the  seminary,  the  whole  crowd settled  by  classes  in
low-ceilinged but raiher spacious rooms with small windows, wide doors,  and
dirty desks. The classroom  would suddenly  be  filled with  the hum of many
voices: the  monitors  listened  to  their charges, the ringing  treble of a
grammarian  would  fall  in tune with the jingling of the windowpanes in the
small windows, the glass echoing with almost the same sound; from the corner
came the low  buzz of a rhetorician whose mouth and thick lips ought to have
belonged to philosophy at the  least. He buzzed in 3 bass, and from afar all
you heard was: boo, boo, boo,  boo .  .  .  The monitors, as they heard  the
lessons,  looked with one eye  under the desk, where  a roll or dumpling  or
pumpkin seeds stuck out of their subordinate's pocket.
     If all this learned crowd managed to  come a little earlier, or if they
knew that  the  professors would be later  than usual, then,  with universal
agreement,  a battle would be planned,  and in this battle  everyone  had to
take  part, even the  censors, whose  duty  was to look  after the order and
morals of all the student estate.  Usually two theologians decided  bow  the
battle would go;  whether each  class should stand separately for itself, or
they  should  divide  themselves  into  two  halves,  the  boarders and  the
seminary. In any case, it was the grammarians who would begin  it first, but
as  soon as the rhetoricians  mixed in, they would flee and stand on  higher
ground  to watch the battle. Then philosophy with long black mustaches would
step forth,  and  finally theology in terrible ballooning trousers  and with
the thickest necks. The usual end was that theology would beat them all, and
philosophy, rubbing its sides, would be hustled into class, where it settled
down  to rest at  the desks. A professor  who had once taken  part  in  such
battles himself, on entering  the  classroom, would  know  at  once from his
students' flushed  faces that it had been a fine  battle,  and while he gave
the rhetorics a knuckle-rapping, in another class another professor would be
applying the wooden slats to the  hands of philosophy.  With the theologians
it  was done in a totally different way: each was allotted, as the professor
of theology put it, a measure of "big peas," dealt out  with a short leather
whip.
     For  feast  days  and  solemnities,  the boarders and seminarians  went
around  visiting  houses  with  miracle  plays. Sometimes  they performed  a
comedy, and  on such occasions some theologian, nearly  as  tall as the Kiev
belfry, would always distinguish himself playing Herodias or the wife of the
Egyptian  courtier Fotiphar.2 As a reward they might get a length
of linen, or a sack of millet, or half a boiled goose, or the like.
     All these  learned folk,  both seminary and boarders,  while living  in
some sort of hereditary hostility among themselves, had extremely poor means
of obtaining  food and were at  the  same time extraordinarily voracious; so
that to  count  how many dumplings  each of  them gobbled up at supper would
have  been a quite impossible task; and therefore the voluntary donations of
wealthy citizens  were never enough. Then a senate comprised of philosophers
and theologians would send  out  the grammarians and rhetoricians, under the
leadership of one  philosopher--and would  sometimes join them itself--sacks
over  their shoulders,  to  lay waste people's  kitchen gardens. And pumpkin
gruel  would  appear in  the  school. The senators  ate so  much  melon  and
watermelon that the monitors would hear two lessons instead of one from them
the  next day: one proceeding  from the  mouth, the  other growling  in  the
senatorial stomach. Boarders and seminary wore what looked like some sort of
long frock  coats which  reached heretofore, a  technical term meaning below
the heels.
     The most solemn event for the seminary was vacation, beginning with the
month  of June, when the boarders  used to be sent home. Then the whole high
road  would  be  covered with  grammarians,  philosophers,  and theologians.
Whoever  did not  have his  own  refuge  would  go to  one of  his  friends.
Philosophers and  theologians would  go  on conditions--that is, they  would
undertake to teach or prepare the children of wealthy people for school, and
would earn  a new pair of  boots by it  and occasionally enough for a  frock
coat. This  whole crowd  would string along together like a Gypsy camp, cook
kasha-1  for themselves, and sleep in the fields. Each dragged  a
sack on his back with a shirt and a pair of foot-rags. The theologians  were
especially thrifty and neat:  to avoid wearing out  their boots,  they would
take them  off, hang  them on a  stick,  and carry them over their shoulder,
especially  when  there-was mud.  Then, rolling  their trousers to the knee,
they would  go  splashing fearlessly through the puddles. As  soon  as  they
caught  sight  of  a farmstead,  they  would  turn off  the high  road  and,
approaching a cottage that looked better kept than the others, would line up
in front of the windows and begin a full-throated  hymn. The  cottager, some
old Cossack peasant,  would listen to them for a long  time, leaning on both
arms, then weep  very bitterly and  say,  turning to his  wife: "Wife!  what
these students  are  singing must  be something very intelligent;  bring out
some lard  for  them and  whatever else  we've  got!" And  a whole  bowi  of
dumplings would be  poured into a sack. A  decent hunk of lard, a few  white
loaves,  and sometimes even  a  trussed-up  chicken  would go  in  as  well.
Fortified with these supplies,  the grammarians, rhetoricians, philosophers,
and theologians would continue on their way. However, the further they went,
the smaller the crowd became.  Almost all of them would have  reached  home,
leaving only those whose parental nests were further away than the others.
     Once during such a journey three  students turned  off the high road in
order  to  provide themselves  with  victuals  at the first  farmstead  they
happened  upon,  because  their sack had long  been empty.  These  were: the
theologian Khalyava, the philosopher Khoma Brut, and the rhetorician Tiberiy
Gorobets.
     The  theologian was a tall,  broad-shouldered man, and  of an extremely
strange  character:  whatever  lay near  him he was sure  to steal. On other
occasions  his character was extremely glum,  and when he got drunk he would
hide in the weeds, and it would cost the seminary  enormous efforts  to find
him there.
     The philosopher Khoma Brut was of  a  merry disposition. He liked  very
much to lie  about  and smoke his pipe. When he  drank,  he was sure to hire
musicians and dance the trepak. He often got a taste of the  "big peas," but
with perfectly philosophical indifference, saying what will be, will be.
     The rhetorician  Tiberiy Gorobets did not yet have the right to grow  a
mustache,  drink vodka, and  smoke a  pipe. All he had was his topknot,  and
therefore his character was not much developed  at that time; but judging by
the big bumps on the forehead with  which he often came to class,  one could
suppose  he would  make a  fine  warrior. The  theologian Khalyava  and  the
philosopher  Khoma  often pulled  him  by the  topknot as a  sign  of  their
patronage and employed him as their deputy.
     It was already evening when they turned off the  high road. The sun had
just  gone  down  and the warmth  of the  day  was  still  in  the  air. The
theologian  and the  philosopher walked along  silently smoking their pipes;
the rhetorician Tiberiy Gorobets knocked the  heads off  burdocks growing on
the  roadside with a  stick.  The road  went  among stands of oak and  hazel
bushes that  dotted  the  meadows. The plain was  occasionally disrupted  by
slopes  and small hills,  green  and round as cupolas.  A field of  ripening
grain showed in two places,  making it known that  some  village  must  soon
appear.  But it was more than an hour  since  they had  passed the strips of
grain and no dwelling had come along yet. Twilight was already darkening the
sky, and only in the west was there a pale remnant of vermilion radiance,
     "What the devil!" said the philosopher Khoma Brut. "It certainly looked
as if there'd be a farmstead."
     The  theologian said nothing; he looked around,  then put his pipe back
in his mouth, and they all went on their way.
     "By  God!" the  philosopher said, stopping again. "It's as dark  as the
devil's fist."
     "Maybe there'll be some farm  further on," said the theologian, without
releasing his pipe.
     Meanwhile, however, it was  already night, and a  rather dark night  at
that, Clouds  made  it gloomier  still, and by all  tokens neither stars nor
moon were to  be expected. The students noticed that they had lost their way
and for a long while had not been walking on the road.
     The philosopher, after feeling in all directions with his feet, at last
said abruptly:
     "But where's the road?"
     The theologian pondered silendy and observed:
     "Yes, it's a dark night."
     The rhetorician stepped to  one side  and tried to feel for the road on
all fours, but his hands kept ending  up in fox  holes. Everywhere there was
nothing but steppe where it seemed no one passed. The travelers made another
effort to  move forward a bit, but everywhere was the  same  wilderness. The
philosopher tried  shouting,  but his voice  was  completely  muffled on all
sides and met no response. Only a  little later came  a faint  wailing  that
resembled the howling of a wolf.
     "Well, what do we do now?" said the philosopher.
     "Why,  we stay and spend the night in the fields!" said the theologian,
and he went to  his pocket to get his tinderbox and light up his pipe again.
But the philosopher could not agree to that. He had always been in the habit
of  packing  away  a  ten-pound  hunk of bread and some four  pounds of lard
before going to bed and this time felt a  sort of unbearable solitude in his
stomach.  Besides,  for  all  his  merry  disposition,  the philosopher  was
somewhat afraid of wolves.
     "No, Khalyava, we can't," he said. "What, lie down and stretch out like
some  dog without fortifying ourselves? Let's try again, maybe we'll  happen
onto some  dwelling and  manage  to get at least a  glass  of vodka for  the
night."
     At the word vodka the theologian spat to one side and observed:
     "Sure, there's no point staying in the fields."
     The students went on  and, to their greatest  joy, fancied they heard a
distant barking. Figuring  out  the  direction,  they listened, set off more
cheerfully and, after going a little further, saw a light.
     "A farmstead! By God, a farmstead!" said the philosopher.
     His anticipation did not disappoint  him; in a short while  they indeed
saw a small farmstead that consisted of just  two cottages  sharing the same
yard. There  was light  in the  windows. A dozen plum trees stuck up by  the
paling. Peeking through cracks in the boards of the gates, the students  saw
a yard filled with ox carts. Just then stars appeared here  and there in the
sky.
     "Watch out, brothers, don't hang back! We must get a night's lodging at
all costs!"
     The three learned men knocked at the gate with one accord and shouted:
     "Open up!"
     The door of  one cottage creaked,  and a minute later the students  saw
before them an old woman in a sheepskin coat.
     "Who's there?" she cried with a muffled cough.
     "Let us in  for  the night, granny. We've lost our way. It's as bad out
in the fields as it is in a hungry belly."
     "And what sort of folk are you?"
     "We're  harmless folk: the  theologian Khalyava, the philosopher  Brut,
and the rhetorician Gorobets."
     "Can't do it," the old woman grumbled. "I've got a yard full of people,
and every corner of the cottage is taken. Where will I put you? And such big
and hefty folk at that! My cottage will fall apart if I take in the likes of
you. I  know these  philosophers and  theologians. Once you start  taking in
those drunkards, there soon won't be any house. Away! Away with you! There's
no room for you here!"
     "Have mercy, granny! Can it be chat Christian souls must perish for  no
reason at all? Put us up wherever you like. And if we  somehow  do something
or other--let our arms wither, and whatever else God only knows. There!"
     The old woman seemed to soften a little.
     "Very well," she said,  as if considering, "I'll  let you in. Only I'll
make you all sleep  in different places, for my heart  won't  be at peace if
you lie together."
     "That's as you will, we won't object," replied the students.
     The gates creaked and they went into the yard.
     "Well, granny,"  said  the  philosopher, following  the old woman, "and
what  if,  as they  say  ... by God, it's as  if  wheels  are turning  in my
stomach. We haven't had a sliver in our mouths since morning"
     "See what he's after!" the old woman said. "I've got nothing,
     nothing like that, and I didn't start the stove all day."
     "And tomorrow," the philosopher went on, "we'll  pay for it  all,  well
and good,  in cash. Yes," he went  on softly, "the  devil of a  cent  you'll
get!"
     "Go on, go on! and be content  with what  you've got. Such tender young
sirs the devil's brought us!"
     The  philosopher Khoma  became utterly despondent at these  words.  But
suddenly his nose caught the scent of dried fish. He glanced at the trousers
of the theologian walking beside him and saw an  enormous fish tail sticking
out of his pocket: the theologian had already managed to snatch a whole carp
off  a wagon. And since  he had done it not for  any profit  but simply from
habit,  and,  having forgotten his carp  completely, was  looking around for
something else to filch,  not intending to overlook even a broken wheel, the
philosopher  Khoma put  his hand into his pocket as if it were  his very own
and pulled out the carp.
     The  old woman got the  students installed: the rhetorician  was put in
the cottage,  the theologian was shut up in an empty closet, the philosopher
was assigned to the sheep pen, also empty.
     The philosopher, left  alone, ate the carp in one minute, examined  the
wattled sides of the pen, shoved his foot into  the curious snout that a pig
had  poked through  from the next pen, and rolled over on his  other side in
order to fall into a  dead  sleep. Suddenly  the low door opened and the old
woman, stooping down, came into the pen.
     "Well, granny, what do you want?" said the philosopher.
     But the old woman came toward him with outspread arms.
     "Oh-ho!" thought the philosopher. "Only  no,  dearie, you're obsolete!"
He moved slightly  further off, but again the old woman unceremoniously came
toward him.
     "Listen,  granny," said  the philosopher, "it's a fast period, and  I'm
the sort of man who won't break his fast even for a thousand gold roubles."
     But  the old woman kept spreading her arms and grasping for him without
saying a word.
     The philosopher  became frightened, especially when he noticed that her
eyes flashed with some extraordinary light.
     "Granny! What is it? Go, go with God!" he cried.
     But the old woman did not say a word and kept grabbing for him with her
arms.
     He jumped to his  feet,  intending to flee,  but the old woman stood in
the doorway, fixing her flashing eyes on him, and again began to come toward
him.
     The  philosopher wanted to push her away with his hands, but noticed to
his astonishment that his arms would not rise, nor would his legs move; with
horror he discovered  that the sound  of his voice  would not even come from
his  mouth: the words stirred soundlessly on his lips. He heard only how his
own heart  was  beating; he saw how the old woman came up to him, folded his
arms, bent his neck, jumped with catlike quickness onto his back, struck him
on the  side with a broom, and he, leaping like  a saddle horse, carried her
on his  back. All  this  happened  so quickly  that the  philosopher  barely
managed to recover his senses and seize both  his knees with his hands in an
effort  to  stop  his legs;  but, to his great  amazement,  they kept moving
against his will and performed leaps  quicker than a  Circassian racer. When
they passed the farmstead, and  a smooth hollow opened  out before them, and
the coal-black  forest  spread out  to one side,  only  then did  he say  to
himself: "Oh-oh, this is a witch!"
     A reverse crescent  moon shone in the sky. The timid  midnight radiance
lay lightly as a transparent  blanket and  steamed over  the earth.  Forest,
meadows, sky,  valleys--all seemed  to be  sleeping  with  open eyes.  Not a
flutter of  wind anywhere.  There was something damply warm  in the  night's
freshness. The  shadows of trees  and  bushes,  like  comets, fell  in sharp
wedges over the sloping plain. Such was the night when the philosopher Khoma
Brut galloped  with an incomprehensible  rider  on his  back.  He felt  some
languid,  unpleasant,  and at the  same time  sweet feeling  coming into his
heart. He  lowered his head and saw that  the  grass, which was almost under
his  feet, seemed to be growing  deep and distant and that over it was water
as transparent as a  mountain spring, and the grass seemed to be at the deep
bottom  of  some bright, transparent  sea; at least he  clearly  saw his own
reflection in  it, together with the old woman sitting  on his back.  He saw
some sun shining there  instead of  the moon;  he  heard  bluebells  tinkle,
bending their heads. He  saw a  water nymph swim  from behind the sedge; her
back and leg flashed, round, lithe, made all of a shining and quivering. She
turned toward him, and her face, with its  light, sharp, shining  eyes, with
its soul-invading  song, now approached him,  was already  at  the  surface,
then, shaking with sparkling laughter, withdrew--and then she turned over on
her back, and the sun  shone through her nebulous breasts, matte as unglazed
porcelain, at the edges  of their  white,  tenderly elastic roundness. Water
covered  them in tiny bubbles like beads. She trembles all over and laughs m
the water . . .
     Is  he seeing it, or is he not?  Is  he awake or asleep? But  what now?
Wind or music: ringing, ringing, and whirling, and approaching, and piercing
the soul with some unbearable trill . . .
     "What is it?" thought the philosopher Khoma Brut, looking  down,  as he
raced on at top speed.  Sweat streamed from him. He felt a demonically sweet
feeling, he felt some piercing, some  languidly terrible pleasure.  It often
seemed to him as if his  heart were no longer there  at all, and in fear  he
would clutch at it with his hand. Exhausted, bewildered, he  began to recall
all the  prayers he ever  knew.  He  ran through all  the exorcisms  against
spirits--and suddenly felt some relief; he felt his step beginning to become
lazier, the witch held somehow more weakly to liis back. Thick grass touched
him, and he no longer saw anything extraordinary in  it. The bright crescent
shone in the sky.
     "All  right, then!" thought the philosopher  Khoma, and he began saying
exorcisms almost  aloud. Finally,  quick as lightning, he jumped  from under
the old woman and in his turn leaped on her back. With her small, quick step
the  old woman ran so fast that the rider could hardly catch his breath. The
earth  just  flashed  beneath him.  Everything was  clear  in the moonlight,
though  the  moon was not full. The  valleys were smooth, but  owing  to the
speed everything flashed vaguely  and confusedly in his eyes. He snatched up
a billet lying in the  road and started beating  the old woman as hard as he
could  with  it.  She  let  out  wild  screams;  first they  were  angry and
threatening, then  they  turned weaker,  more pleasant, pure, and then soft,
barely  ringing,  like fine silver  bells, penetrating  his  soul. A thought
flashed inadvertently in his head: Is this really an old woman? "Oh, I can't
take any more!" she said in exhaustion and fell to the ground.
     He got to his feet and  looked into her eyes: dawn was breaking and the
golden domes  of the Kievan churches shone in the distance. Before him lay a
beauty  with  a  disheveled,  luxurious  braid  and long, pointy  eyelashes.
Insensibly,  she  spread her bare white arms  and  moaned,  looking up  with
tear-fdled eyes.
     Khoma trembled like a leaf  on a tree: pity and some strange excitement
and timidity, incomprehensible to himself,  came over  him;  he broke into a
headlong run. His heart beat uneasily on the way, and he was quite unable to
explain to  himself  this strange new  feeling that had come over him. He no
longer wanted to go around  to the  farmsteads and  hastened  back  to Kiev,
pondering this incomprehensible incident as he went.
     There were almost no students  in the  city:  they  had all gone to the
farmsteads, either on conditions, or simply without  any conditions, because
on  Little  Russian farmsteads one can eat  dumplings, cheese,  sour  cream,
fritters as big  as a  hat, without paying a penny. The big, sprawling house
where  the  boarders  lodged  was decidedly  empty,  and  thoroughly as  the
philosopher searched in all the corners, even feeling in  all the  holes and
crannies under the roof, nowhere did he find a piece of bacon or at least an
old knish-- things usually stashed away by the boarders.
     However, the  philosopher soon  found  a solution  to his troubles:  he
strolled,  whistling, through the  marketplace three times  or so, exchanged
winks at the  very end with  some  young  widow  in  a  yellow  cap who sold
ribbons, lead shot,  and wheels--and that same  day was fed wheat dumplings,
chicken ...  in  a word, there was no counting  what lay before him  on  the
table, set in a small clay  house  amid cherry trees.  That same evening the
philosopher  was  seen in  the tavern: he was lying on a bench  smoking  his
pipe, as was his custom,  and in front of everybody tossed a gold  piece  to
the Jew  tavern keeper. Before  him stood a  mug. He looked at people coming
and  going with coolly contented eyes and no longer  gave any thought to his
extraordinary incident.
     meanwhile, the rumor spread  everywhere that the daughter of one of the
richest  Cossack chiefs,  whose farmstead  was  some  thirty-five miles from
Kiev, had come home from a walk one day all beaten up, had barely managed to
reach her father's house, was now lying  near  death, and  before her  dying
hour had expressed the wish that the  prayers at  her deathbed and for three
days after her death be read by  one of  the Kievan seminarians: Khoma Brut.
The  philosopher  learned it  from  the  rector  himself,  who  summoned him
specially to his  room and announced that he must hasten on his way  without
delay, that the eminent chief had specially sent people and a cart for him.
     The philosopher gave a start  from some unaccountable  feeling which he
could not  explain to himself. A dark foreboding told him that something bad
lay in store for him. Not knowing why himself, he announced directly that he
would not go.
     "Listen,  domine   Khoma!"6  said  the  rector  (on  certain
occasions he spoke very courteously with  his  subordinates), "the  devil if
anyone's asking  you whether  you want to  go or not.  I'm telling  you only
this, that  if you keep standing on your mettle and being clever, I'll order
you whipped with young birch rods on the back and  other parts--so well that
you won't need to go to the steam-baths."
     The philosopher, scratching lightly  behind his ear, walked out without
saying a word, intending to trust to his legs at the first opportunity. Deep
in thought, he was going down the steep steps to the poplar-ringed courtyard
when he stopped for a minute, hearing quite clearly the voice of  the rector
giving orders to his housekeeper and someone else, probably one of those the
chief had sent to fetch him.
     "Thank your master for the grain and eggs," the rector was saying, "and
tell him that as soon as the books he wrote about are ready,  I'll send them
at once.  I've already  given  them  to  the scribe for  copying. And  don't
forget, dear heart, to tell the master that I know there are good fish to be
had  on  his  farmstead,  especially sturgeon, which  he  can  send whenever
there's a chance: at the markets here it's  expensive and no good.  And you,
Yavtukh, give  the  lads  a  glass of vodka.  And  tie up  the  philosopher,
otherwise he'll take off."
     "Why, that devil's son!" the philosopher  thought to himself, "he's got
wind of it, the long-legged slicker!"
     He went down the steps and saw  a kibitka, which at first he took for a
granary on wheels.  Indeed, it was  as deep  as a brick  kiln. This  was  an
ordinary Krakow vehicle such as Jews hire, fifty  of them squeezing in along
with their goods,  to  carry them  to every  town where their noses smell  a
fair. He was awaited  by some six  stalwart and  sturdy  Cossacks, no longer
young  men. Jackets of fine flannel with fringe showed that they belonged to
a considerable and wealthy owner. Small scars bespoke their having once been
to war, not without glory.
     "No  help  for  it! What will  be, will be!" the philosopher thought to
himself and, addressing the Cossacks, said loudly:
     "Greetings, friends and comrades!"
     "Greetings to you, master philosopher!" some of the Cossacks replied.
     "So I'm  supposed to get  in there with you? A fine wagon!" he went on,
climbing in. "Just hire some musicians and you could dance in it!"
     "Yes, a commensurate vehicle!" said one of  the Cossacks, getting up on
the  box along  with  the  coachman, who had a  rag  wrapped around his head
instead of his hat, which he had already left in the tavern. The other five,
together  with the  philosopher,  climbed deep inside  and settled on  sacks
filled with various purchases made in town.
     "I'd be curious to know," said the philosopher, "if this  wagon were to
be loaded, for example, with certain goods--salt, say,  or  iron wedges--how
many horses would it need?"
     "Yes," the Cossack on the box said after some silence, "it would need a
sufficient number of horses."
     After which satisfactory  answer,  the Cossack  considered  he had  the
right to keep silent the rest of the way.
     The philosopher had a  great desire to find out in more detail who this
chief  was, what sort  of character he  had, what  this  rumor was about his
daughter, who had come home  in  such  an extraordinary fashion  and was now
dying, and whose story was now connected with his own, how it  was with them
and what went on  in the  house? He  addressed them  with questions; but the
Cossacks must  also  have  been philosophers, because  they said  nothing in
reply, lay on the sacks and smoked  their pipes. Only orie of them addressed
the coachman sitting  on  the  box with  a brief order;  "Keep an  eye  out,
Overko,  you old  gawk.  When  you get  near  the  tavern,  the  one on  the
Chukhrailovsky road, don't forget to stop, and wake me and the other lads up
if  we  happen to  fall asleep." After that  he fell  rather loudly  asleep.
However,  these admonitions were quite  superfluous, because as soon as  the
gigantic  wagon approached  the tavern on the Chukhrailovsky road, everybody
shouted with one  voice:  "Stop!" Besides, Overko's  horses were already  so
used to it that  they themselves stopped  in front of  every tavern. Despite
the hot July  day, everybody got  out  of  the wagon and went into  the low,
dingy  room where the Jew  tavern keeper rushed with signs of joy to welcome
his old acquaintances. Under his  coat skirts  the Jew brought several  pork
sausages and, having placed them on the table, immediately turned away  from
this Talmud-forbidden fruit.  They  all settled around the table. A clay mug
appeared in front of each guest. The philosopher Khoma  had to  take part in
the general feasting. And since people in Little Russia, once they get a bit
merry, are sure to start kissing each other or weeping, the whole place  was
soon filled with kissing: "Well, now,  Spirid, give us a smack!" "Come here,
Dorosh, till I embrace you!"
     One Cossack who was a bit older than the others, with a gray  mustache,
rested his cheek on his hand and began sobbing his heart out over his having
no father or mother and being  left all alone  in  the world. Another  was a
great  reasoner and kept comforting him, saying: "Don't  cry,  by God, don't
cry! What's this now. . . God, He knows how and  what it is."  The one named
Dorosh   became  extremely  inquisitive  and,  addressing   himself  to  the
philosopher Khoma, kept asking him:
     "I'd like to know what they teach you at the seminary--the same as what
the deacon reads in church, or something else?"
     "Don't ask!" drawled the reasoner. "Let  it all be as it has been. God,
He knows how it should be; God knows everything."
     "No," Dorosh went  on,  "I  want to know what's written in those books.
Maybe something completely different from the deacon's."
     "Oh, my God, my God!"  the esteemed mentor said to that. "What on earth
are  you  talking about? God's will decided it so. It's all  as God gave it,
they can't go changing it."
     "I want to  know all what's written  there. I'll go to the seminary, by
God, I will! What  do  you think, that I can't learn? I'll learn all  of it,
all of it!"
     "Oh, my God, my  goddy  God! . . ." the comforter said and  lowered his
head  to  the table,  because  he  was  quite unable  to hold  it  up on his
shoulders any longer.
     The  other Cossacks  talked about landowners and why the moon shines in
the sky.
     The philosopher  Khoma, seeing such  a disposition of minds, decided to
take  advantage of it and  slip  away.  First he  addressed the  gray-haired
Cossack who was grieving over his father and mother:
     "What's there to cry about, uncle," he said, "I'm an orphan myself! Let
me go free, lads! What do you need me for?"
     "Let's  set him free!" some replied. "He's an  orphan. Let him go where
he likes."
     "Oh, my God, my goddy God!" the comforter said, raising his head. "Free
him! Let him go!"
     And the Cossacks were going to take him to the open fields  themselves,
but the one who showed his curiosity stopped them, saying:
     "Hands off! I want to talk to him about the seminary. I'm going to  the
seminary myself. . ."
     Anyhow, this escape could  hardly have  been accomplished, because when
the philosopher decided to get up from the table, his legs turned  as if  to
wood, and he began to see so many doors in the room  that it was unlikely he
could have found the real one.
     Only in the evening did this company all remember that they  had to  be
on their way. Scrambling into the wagon, they drove off, urging their horses
on and singing  a song, the  words and meaning of which could hardly be made
out. After spending the better half of the  night rambling about, constantly
losing  the way, which they knew by heart, they  finally  descended a  steep
hill into a valley, and  the philosopher noticed  a palisade or wattle fence
stretching  along the sides, low trees  and roofs peeking  from behind them.
This  was the  big  settlement  belonging to the chief.  It  was  long  past
midnight; the sky was dark and small stars flashed here and there. There was
no light in any of the huts. Accompanied by the barking of a dog, they drove
into the yard. On both sides thatch-roofed sheds and cottages could be seen.
One  of them, in the middle,  direcdy facing the gates, was  bigger than the
rest  and  seemed  to be  the owner's  dwelling.  The  wagon stopped  before
something  like  a  small  shed,  and  our  travelers  went  to  sleep.  The
philosopher, however, wanted to look the master's mansion over a little; but
however  wide he opened his eyes, he  could see  nothing clearly: instead of
the house, he saw  a bear; the chimney turned into a rector. The philosopher
waved his hand and went to sleep.
     When  the  philosopher woke up,  the whole house  was astir: during the
night the master's daughter  had died. Servants ran  to and fro in a flurry.
Some old  woman  cried. A crowd of the curious looked through the fence into
the master's yard, as if there was anything to be seen there.
     The philosopher  began  leisurely to  examine  the places he  had  been
unable to  make out at  night. The masters house  was a small, low  building
such  as  was commonly built  in  Little Russia  in  the old days. It had  a
thatched roof.  The  sharp  and high  little  pediment, with a small  window
resembling an  upturned  eye,  was  painted  ail over with  blue and  yellow
flowers  and  red crescents. It  was  held  up by oak posts,  the upper half
rounded and the lower hexagonal,  with fancy turning at the tops. Under this
pediment  was a small porch with benches on both sides.  At  the ends of the
house  were shed roofs on the same sort of posts,  some of  them twisted.  A
tall pear tree with a pyramidal top and trembling leaves greened in front of
the house. Several barns stood  in  two rows in the yard, forming a  sort of
wide  street leading to the house. Beyond the barns, toward  the  gates, the
triangles of two  cellars stood facing each other,  also roofed with thatch.
The triangular wall of each was furnished with a door  and painted over with
various images. On one  of them a Cossack was portrayed sitting on a barrel,
holding  a mug over his  head with the  inscription: "I'll Drink It All." On
the other,  a  flask, bottles, and around  them, for the  beauty  of  it, an
upside-down  horse,  a  pipe, tambourines,  and the inscription: "Drink--the
Cossack's Delight." From  the loft of one of the barns, through an  enormous
dormer window, peeked a drum and some brass trumpets. By the gates stood two
cannon. Everything showed that the  master of the house liked to make  merry
and that  the yard  often resounded with the noise of feasting.  Outside the
gates were two windmills.  Behind the house ran the gardens; and through the
treetops one could  see only the dark caps of chimneys  hiding in the  green
mass  of cottages.  The  entire settlement was situated on a wide  and level
mountain  ledge.  To  the  north  everything  was  screened  off by  a steep
mountain,  the  foot of which  came right down to the yard.  Looked  at from
below,  it seemed steeper still, and on  its high top the irregular stems of
skimpy  weeds stuck out here and there, black  against  the  bright sky. Its
bare and clayey appearance evoked a certain despondency. It was all furrowed
with gullies and grooves left by rain. In two places, cottages were stuck to
its steep slope; over one of them an apple tree, propped by small stakes and
a mound of dirt at its roots, spread its branches broadly. Windfallen apples
rolled right down into the master's yard. From the top a road wound down all
over the mountain and in its descent went past the yard into the settlement.
When  the  philosopher measured its  terrible  steepness and remembered  the
previous day's journey, he decided that either the master's horses were very
smart  or the  Cossacks' heads were  very strong  to have managed,  even  in
drunken fumes, not to tumble down head first along with  the boundless wagon
and the baggage. The philosopher stood on the highest point of the yard, and
when he turned and looked in the opposite direction, he was presented with a
totally  different  sight.  The settlement, together with  the slope, rolled
down onto a plain. Vast meadows opened out beyond  the reach of sight; their
bright  greenery  became darker in the distance, and whole rows  of villages
blued far  off, though they were more than a dozen miles away.  To the right
of  these  meadows, mountains  stretched and the distant,  barely noticeable
strip of the Dnieper burned and darkled.
     "Ah, a fine spot!" said  the philosopher. "To live here, to fish in the
Dnieper and the ponds, to take a  net or a gun  and go hunting for snipe and
curlew! Though I suppose there's also no lack of bustards in these  meadows.
Quantities of fruit can be dried and sold in town or, even better, distilled
into vodka--because no liquor can  touch vodka made from fruit. And it  also
wouldn't hurt to consider how to slip away from here."
     He  noticed a small path beyond the wattle  fence, completely overgrown
with  weeds.  He mechanically stepped onto  it,  thinking  at first only  of
taking a stroll, and then of quietly  blowing out between the  cottages into
the meadows, when he felt a rather strong hand on his shoulder.
     Behind  him  stood the same  old  Cossack  who had  grieved so bitterly
yesterday over the death of his mother and father and his own loneliness.
     "You oughtn't to  be thinking, master  philosopher, about skipping from
the farmstead!" he said. "It's not  set up  here so as you can run away; and
the roads are bad for walking. Better go to  the  master: he's  been waiting
for you a long time in his room."
     "Let's go!  Why not? . . . It's my pleasure," said the philosopher, and
he followed after the Cossack.
     The chief, an elderly  man with a gray  mustache and  an expression  of
gloomy sorrow, was sitting at a table in his room,  his head propped in both
hands. He was about fifty years  old; but the  deep  despondency on his face
and  a  sort  of wasted pallor showed  that his  soul had  been  crushed and
destroyed all of a sudden, in a single moment, and all  the  old  gaiety and
noisy life had disappeared forever. When Khoma came in together with the old
Cossack, he took away one of his hands and nodded slighdy to their low bow.
     Khoma and the Cossack stopped respectfully by the door.
     "Who are you, and  where from, and of what estate, good man?" the chief
said, neither kindly nor sternly.
     "I'm the philosopher Khoma Brut, a student."
     "And who was your father?"
     "I don't know, noble sir."
     "And your mother?"
     "I  don't know my  mother, either. Reasonably  considering, of  course,
chere was a mother; but who she was, and where from,  and when she lived--by
God, your honor, I don't know."
     The chiet paused and seemed to sit pondering for a moment.
     "And how did you become acquainted with my daughter?"
     "I  didn't become acquainted, noble sir,  by God, I didn't. I've  never
had any dealings with young ladies in all my born days. Deuce take them, not
to say something improper."
     "Then why was it  none other than you, precisely, that she appointed to
read?"
     The philosopher shrugged his shoulders:
     "God  knows  how  to  explain  that. It's a  known  fact  that  masters
sometimes want something that even the  most literate man can't figure  out.
And as the saying goes: 'Hop faster, mind the master!'"
     "And you wouldn't happen to be lying, mister philosopher?"
     "May lightning strike me right here if I'm lying."
     "If you'd  lived  only one  litde minute longer," the chief said sadly,
"I'd surely have learned everything. 'Don't let anybody read over me, daddy,
but send to  the Kiev seminary at once and bring the student Khoma Brut. Let
him pray three nights for my sinful soul. He knows . . .' But what he knows,
I didn't  hear. She, dear soul,  could only say  that, and  then  she  died.
Surely, good man, you
     must be known for your holy life and God-pleasing  deeds, and maybe she
heard about you."
     "Who, me?" the  student said, stepping back  in  amazement, "Me, a holy
life?" he  said, looking the chief straight  in the eye, "God help you, sir!
Indecent  though it is to say,  I went calling on the baker's  wife on  Holy
Thursday itself."
     "Well. .  . surely you were appointed for  some reason. You'll  have to
start the business this same day."
     "To that, your  honor, I'd reply ... of course,  anybody versed in Holy
Scripture could commensurably . . . only here it would call for a deacon, or
at least a subdeacon. They're smart folk and know how it's done, while I ...
And  I haven't got  die voice  for it,  and  myself  I'm--devi! knows  what.
Nothing to look at."
     "That's all very well, only I'll do everything my little  dove  told me
to  do, I won't leave anything out. And once you've prayed over her properly
for  three nights, starting today,  I'll reward  you. Otherwise--I  wouldn't
advise even (he devil himself to make me angry."
     The chief uttered these last words with such force that the philosopher
fully understood their meaning.
     "Follow me!" said the chief.
     They  stepped  out to the front hall.  The chief  opened  the  door  to
another room opposite  the first. The  philosopher stopped in the hall for a
moment to blow his nose and then with  some  unaccountable  fear crossed the
threshold. The whole floor was covered with red cotton cloth. In the corner,
under the icons, on a high table, lay the body  of the dead girl, on a cover
of blue velvet adorned with gold fringe and tassels. Tall wax candles twined
with guelder rose stood at her head and feet, shedding their dim light, lost
in the brightness of day. The face of the dead girl was screened from him by
the  disconsolate  father, who sat  before her, his back to  the  door.  The
philosopher was struck by the words he heard:
     "I'm not  sorry, my darling daughter, that you, to my sorrow and grief,
have left the earth in the  flower of  your  youth,  without living out your
allotted  term.  I'm sorry, my  little dove, that I do not know who it  was,
what wicked  enemy of mine, that caused your death. And if I  knew of anyone
who might only think of insulting you or just of saying something unpleasant
about  you,  I  swear  to God he  would never see his children again,  if he
happened to be as old as I am, or his father and mother, if  he was  still a
young man;  and  his body  would be  thrown to  the birds and beasts of  the
steppe. But  woe is me,  my wild marigold, my little  quail, my bright star,
that I must live out the rest  of my life with no  delight, wiping the tears
with  my coattails as they flow  from  my aged eyes, while my enemy rejoices
and laughs secretly at the feeble old man . . ."
     He stopped, and  the reason for it was the rending  grief that resolved
itself in a whole Hood of tears.
     The philosopher was moved by such inconsolable  sorrow. He coughed  and
gave a muffled grunt, wishing thereby to clear his voice a little.
     The  chief  turned and  pointed to the place at the  dead girl's  head,
before a small lectern on which some books lay.
     "I  can  do  the three nights' work somehow," thought  the philosopher,
"and the master will fill both my pockets with gold coins for it."
     He approached and, clearing his throat once more, began to read, paying
no  attention  to anything  around him and not daring to look into the  dead
girl's face. A deep silence settled in. He noticed that the  chief had left.
Slowly he turned his head to look at the dead girl, and . . .
     A shudder  ran through his veins: before him lay a beauty such as there
had  never  been  on earth. It seemed that facial features had  never before
been assembled  into such sharp  yet harmonious beauty. She lay as if alive.
Her  brow, beautiful, tender, like snow, like silver, seemed thoughtful; her
eyebrows--night  amid  a  sunny  day, thin, regular--rose  proudly over  her
closed eyes, and her eyelashes,  falling  pointy  on her cheeks, burned with
the heat of  hidden desires; her  mouth--rubies about to smile . .  . Yet in
them,  in  these same features, he saw something terribly  piercing. He felt
his soul begin to ache  somehow painfully, as if, in  the whirl of merriment
and giddiness of a crowd, someone suddenly  struck up a song about oppressed
people. The  rubies of  her mouth seemed to make  the blood scald his heart.
Suddenly something terribly familiar showed in her face.
     "The witch!" he cried out  in  a voice not his own, looked away, turned
pale, and began reading his prayers.
     It was the very witch he had killed.
     When the sun began to set, the dead girl was  taken to the church.  The
philosopher supported the black-draped coffin with one shoulder, and on that
shoulder he  felt something cold as ice. The chief himself walked  in front,
bearing  the  right side of  the  dead  girl's cramped house. The  blackened
wooden church, adorned with green moss and  topped by three conical cupolas,
stood desolate almost at the edge of die village. One  could see it was long
since any service had been  celebrated  in  it. Candles burned before almost
every icon.  The  coffin  was placed in the middle, right  in front  of  the
altar. The old chief kissed the dead girl once more, made a prostration, and
walked out together with the bearers, ordering the philosopher to be given a
good meal and taken to the church  after supper. Going into the kitcheu, all
those who had  carried the  coffin  started  touching  the  stove, something
people in Little Russia have the custom of doing after they see a dead body.
     The hunger that the philosopher began to feel just then made him forget
all  about the deceased  for a few moments.  Soon all the household servants
began gradually to gather in the kitchen. The  kitchen of the  chief's house
was something  like  a  club, to which  everything that inhabited  the  yard
flowed,  including  the dogs,  who came  right up  to the door wagging their
tails for  bones  and  scraps.  Wherever anyone  might be sent, on  whatever
errand, he would always stop at the kitchen  first, to rest on a bench for a
moment and smoke a pipe. The  bachelors who lived in  the house and  paraded
around in Cossack blouses all lay about here  for almost  the  whole day, on
the benches, under the benches, on  the stove--in short, wherever they could
find a  comfortable  place to he. Besides, everybody was forever  forgetting
something in the kitchen--a hat, a  knout  for stray dogs, or the like.  But
the most numerous gathering was at suppertime, when the horseherd came after
rounding up all his horses, and the cowherd after bringing the cows home for
milking, and all the rest who were not to be  seen in the course of the day.
During  supper, loquacity  would  come  to the most taciturn  tongues.  Here
everything  was  usually  talked about: someone who was having  new trousers
made for himself. . . and what was inside the earth. . . and someone who had
seen a wolf.  . . There  were numerous  bonmotists7 here, of whom
there is no lack among the people of Little Russia.
     The philosopher  sat  down  with the others in  a wide circle under the
open sky in  front  of  the kitchen porch.  Soon a woman  in a red cap stuck
herself out  the door holding a hot  pot  of dumplings with  both hands, and
placed  it  in the midst of those ready to  eat. Each of them  took a wooden
spoon from his pocket, or some, lacking a spoon, a splinter of wood. As soon
as the mouths began  to move  a bit more slowly and  the wolfish appetite of
the  whole  gathering  subsided  a little,  many  began  to  talk.  The talk
naturally had to turn to the dead girl.
     "Is it true,"  said one young shepherd, who had  stuck  so many buttons
and brass badges on  his  leather pipe strap that  he looked like a mercer's
shop, "is it true that the young miss, not to speak ill of her, kept company
with the unclean one?"
     "Who? The young miss?" said Dorosh, already known  to  our philosopher.
"But she was a downright witch! I'll swear she was a witch!"
     "Enough, enough, Dorosh!"  said  another,  the one who had  shown  such
readiness  to give comfort during the trip. "God help them, it's none of our
business. No point in talking about it."
     But Dorosh was not at all disposed to be silent. He  had only just gone
to the cellar with the steward on some necessary business and, after bending
a couple of times to two or  three barrels, had come out  extremely cheerful
and talking nonstop.
     "What do you want? For me to keep quiet?" he said. "But she rode on me,
on me myself! By God, she did!"
     "And what, uncle," said the young shepherd with the buttons, "are there
some tokens you can tell a witch by?"
     "No," answered Dorosh.  "There's no  way  to tell. Read through all the
psalters, you still won't be able to tell."
     "You  can, too, Dorosh. Don't say that," said the same comforter.  "Not
for nothing did God give everybody a special trait.  People who've  got some
learning say witches have little tails."
     "When  a  woman's  old,  she's a  witch,"  the gray-haired Cossack said
coolly.
     "Ah,  you're a good lot,  too!" picked up the woman,  who was just then
pouring fresh dumplings into the emptied pot. "Real fat boars!"
     The old Cossack, whose  name  was Yavtukh but who was nicknamed Kovtun,
showed a smile of pleasure on his lips, seeing that his words had struck the
old  woman to the  quick; and the cowherd let out such dense  laughter as if
two bulls, facing each other, had bellowed at once.
     The  beginning  conversation  awakened  an   irrepressible  desire  and
curiosity  in  the  philosopher to  learn  more in detail about  the chief's
deceased  daughter. And therefore,  wishing to bring him back  to the former
matter, he addressed his neighbor with these words:
     "I wanted to ask, why is it that all the folk sitting  here over supper
consider the young miss a witch? What, did she cause some evil or put a  hex
on somebody or other?"
     "There were all kinds of things," replied one of the seated men, with a
smooth face extremely like a shovei.
     "And who doesn't remember the huntsman Mikita, or that. . ."
     "And what about the huntsman Mikita?" said the philosopher.
     "Wait! I'll tell about the huntsman Mikita," said Dorosh.
     "I'll tell about Mikita," said the herdsman, "because he was my chum."
     "I'll tell about Mikita," said Spirid.
     "Let him! Let Spirid tell it!" shouted the crowd.
     Spirid began:
     "You, mister philosopher Khoma, didn't know Mikita, Ah, what a rare man
he  was!  He knew every dog like  his  own  father, so  he did.  The present
huntsman Mikola, who's sitting third down from me,  can't hold  a  candle to
him. He also knows his business, but next to Mikita he's trash, slops."
     "You're  telling   it  good,   really   good!"  said   Dorosh,  nodding
approvingly.
     Spirid went on:
     "He'd spot a rabbit quicker than you could take a pinch of snuff.
     He'd whistle:  'Here, Robber! Here, Racer!' and be off at full speed on
his horse, and there'd be no telling whether he was ahead of the dog or  the
dog ahead of him. He'd toss off  a pint of  rotgut as  if it had never  been
there. A fine huntsman he was! Only  in more  recent days he started staring
at the young miss all the time. Either he was really smitten, or she'd put a
spell on him, only it was the end of the man, he  went all soft, turned into
devil knows what-- pah! it's even indecent to say it."
     "Good," said Dorosh.
     "The  young miss  would  no sooner  glance  at him than  he'd drop  the
bridle, call  Robber Grouchy, stumble all over, and  do God knows what. Once
the young miss  tame to the stable where he was grooming a horse. 'Mikitka,'
she  says, 'let  me lay my little leg on you.' And he, the tomfool, gets all
happy 'Not only your little leg,' he says,  'you can  sit right  on me.' The
young miss lifted up her leg, and when he saw her bare leg, white and plump,
the charm, he says, just stunned him. He bent his back, the tomfool, grabbed
her bare legs with both hands, and went  galloping like a horse all over the
fields. And he couldn't tell  anything about where they  rode, only  he came
back barely alive, and after  that he  got all wasted,  like a chip of wood.
And once, when they came to the stable, instead of him there was just a heap
of ashes and an empty bucket lying there: he burned up, burned up of his own
self. And what a huntsman  he was, you won't  find another  like  him in the
whole world."
     When  Spirid finished his story, talk  came  from  all sides  about the
merits of the former huntsman.
     "And have you heard about Shepchikha?" said Dorosh, addressing Khoma.
     No.
     "Oh-ho! Then  it's clear they don't  teach you much sense there in your
seminary. Well, listen! In our settlement there's a Cossack named Sheptun. A
good  Cossack! He likes to stea! or  tell  a he sometimes without any  need,
but... a  good  Cossack! His place isn't far from here. At this same time as
we're  now having  supper,  Sheptun and his wife finished eating and went to
bed, and since the weather  was fine, Shepchikha  slept  outside and Sheptun
inside
     on a bench;  or, no, it was Shepchikha inside  on a  bench and Shep-Cun
outside . . ."
     "And not on a bench, Shepchikha lay on the floor," the woman picked up,
standing in the doorway, her cheek propped on her hand.
     Dorosh looked at her, then at the floor, then at her again, and after a
pause said:
     "When 1 pull  your underwear off  in front of everybody, it won't be so
nice."
     This  warning had its  effect. The  old woman  fell  silent and did not
interrupt anymore.
     Dorosh went on.
     "And in  a  cradle  that  hung  in the  middle  of  the  hut  lay their
one-year-old baby--1  don't know whether of male  or  female sex. Shepchikha
lay there, and then she heard a dog scratching outside  the door and howling
so loud you just wanted to flee the house. She got frightened--for women are
such foolish folk that you  could stick your  tongue  out at  her behind the
door at night and she'd have her heart in her mouth.  'Anyhow,'  she thinks,
'why  don't I go and  hit  the cursed dog  in the  snout, maybe  it'll  stop
howling.' And taking her poker, she went to open the door. As soon as it was
slightly  open, the dog darted between her  legs  and  went straight for the
baby's  cradle. Shepchikha saw that it  was no longer  a dog  but the  young
miss. And  if it had been  the  young miss looking  the way she knew her, it
would have been nothing; but there was this one thing and circumstance: that
she was all blue and her eyes were burning like coals. She grabbed the baby,
bit its  throat,  and  began drinking  its blood. Shepchikha only cried out,
'Ah, evil thing!' and fled. But she  saw that the front  doors  were locked.
She ran to the  attic. The foolish woman sat there  trembling, and then  she
saw  that the young miss was coming to the  attic.  She fell on  the foolish
woman and started biting her. It was morning before Sheptun got his wife out
of there, blue and bitten all over. And the next day the foolish woman died.
That's what  arrangements  and  temptations  can  happen!  Though  she's the
master's progeny, all the same a witch is a witch,"
     After this story, Dorosli looked around smugly and poked his forefinger
into his pipe, preparing to  fill it with tobacco.  The  material  about the
witch became  inexhaustible.  Each in turn  hastened to tell  something. The
witch drove  right  up  to the  door  of one  man's house in the  form  of a
haystack;  she  stole  another's hat or pipe;  cut off"  the  braids of many
village girls; drank several buckets of blood from others.
     At last the whole company came to their senses and  saw that  they  had
been talking  too much, because it was already quite dark outside. They  all
began trudging off to sleep, putting themselves either in the kitchen, or in
the sheds, or in the middle of the yard.
     "Well,  now, Mr. Khoma, it's time we  went  to the deceased," said  the
gray-haired Cossack,  turning  to the  philosopher,  and  the  four of them,
Spirid and Dorosh included, went to the church, swinging their knouts at the
dogs, of which  there were a  great  many  and  which angrily bit  at  their
sticks.
     The  philosopher, though he had fortified  himself with  a  good mug of
vodka,  secretly felt timorousness creeping over him as they drew  near  the
lighted church. The talcs and strange stories he had  heard helped to affect
his imagination still more. The darkness under the paling and trees began to
thin; the  place was  becoming more  bare. They  finally  stepped  past  the
decrepit church fence into the small yard, beyond  which there were no trees
and  nothing  opened  out  but empty  fields and  meadows  swallowed  by the
darkness of night. Together with Khoma, the three Cossacks climbed the steep
steps of the porch and went into the church. Here they left the philosopher,
having wished  him a successful performance of his duty, and locked the door
on him as the master had ordered.
     The  philosopher  remained  alone.  First  he  yawned,  then  stretched
himself, then  blew on both hands, and finally  looked around. In the middle
stood  the  black coffin. Candles flickered before  dark icons. Their  light
illumined only the  iconostasisa  and, faintly, the middle of the
church. The far  corners of the vestibule  were  shrouded  in  darkness. The
tall,  ancient  iconostasis  showed a profound  decrepitude;  its  openwork,
covered in  gold, now gleamed only in sparks. The  gilding had fallen off in
some places, and was
     quite  blackened  in  others;  the  faces  of  the  saints,  completely
darkened, looked somehow gloomy. The philosopher glanced around once more.
     "Why," he said, "what's frightening about  it? No man can get in  here,
and against the dead and visitors from the other world I've got such prayers
that, once I've read them, they'll never lay a finger on me. Nothing to it,"
he said with a wave of the hand, "let's read!"
     Going up to the choir, he saw several bundles of candles.
     "That's  good," thought  the  philosopher, "I must  light up the  whole
church  so that  it's bright as  day. Ah, too bad  I can't smoke my pipe  in
God's church!"
     And  he  began  sticking wax candles to  all the  ledges, lecterns, and
icons, not stinting in the least, and soon the whole church was  filled with
light. Only the darkness above seemed to become deeper, and the dark, images
looked more gloomily from the old carved frames  on which gold gleamed  here
and there. He went up to the  coffin, timidly looked  into  the  dead girl's
face, and could not help shutting bis eyes with a slight start.
     Such terrible, dazzling beauty!
     He turned and wanted to step away; but with strange curiosity, with the
strange, self-contradictory feeling  that will not leave a man especially in
a time of  fear,  he could not refrain from  glancing at her as he went, and
then, with the same feeling of  trepidation, glancing once more. Indeed, the
deceased girl's  sharp beauty seemed frightful.  Perhaps she even  would not
have struck him with  such panic terror if  she had  been slightly ugly. But
there  was  in  her features nothing dull,  lusterless,  dead.  The face was
alive, and it seemed to the philosopher that she was looking at  him through
closed eyes. It  even  seemed to him that a tear rolled from under her right
eyelash, and when it stopped on her cheek, he made out clearly that it was a
drop of blood.
     He hastily  went over  to the  choir,  opened the  book  and, to  cheer
himself up, began reading in his loudest  voice. His voice struck the wooden
walls of the church, long silent and deaf. Solitary, without echo, it poured
in a low bass into the utterly dead silence and seemed a little wild even to
the reader himself.
     "What's there  to be  afraid of?" he thought to himself meanwhile. "She
won't get up  from  her coffin, because she'll be afraid of God's  word. Let
her lie there! And what  kind  of Cossack  am I if I'm scared? So I drank  a
bit--that's  why it  seems  so frightening. If I could take some snuff---ah,
fine tobacco! Nice tobacco! Good tobacco!"
     And  yet, as he  turned  each page,  he  kept glancing sidelong at  the
coffin, and an  involuntary feeling seemed to whisper to him:  "Look,  look,
she's going to get  up, she's going to rise, she's going to peek  out of the
coffin!"
     But there  was  a deathly silence.  The  coffin  stood motionless.  The
candles poured  out a  whole  flood of light. Terrible is a lit-up church at
night, with a dead body and not a living soul!
     Raising his voice, he began singing in various voices, trying to stifle
the remnants of his fear. Yet he turned his  eyes to the coffin  every other
moment,  as if asking the inadvertent question:  "What if she rises, what if
she gets up?"
     But  the coffin  did not stir.  If only there was a  sound, some living
being, even the chirp of a cricket in the corner!  There was just the slight
sizzle of  some remote  candle  and the faint spatter of wax dripping on the
floor.
     "Well, what if she gets up? . . ."
     She raised her head . . .
     He gazed wildly and rubbed his eyes. But she was indeed no longer lying
but  sitting  up in the coffin.  He turned his eyes away, then  again looked
with horror  at the  coffin. She's standing up ... she's walking through the
church with her eyes closed, constantly spreading  her arms as if wishing to
catch someone.
     She was  walking straight toward him. In fear  he drew a circle  around
himself.   With  an  effort  he  began  reading  prayers  and  reciting  the
incantations that had  been taught him by one monk who had seen witches  and
unclean spirits ail his life.
     She stood almost  on the line  itself;  but it was  clearly  beyond her
power to cross it, and she turned all blue,  like  someone  dead for several
days. Khoma did not have the courage to  look at her. She was frightful. She
clacked her teeth and opened her dead eyes. But, seeing  nothing, she turned
in the other direction with a fury that
     showed  in her twitching face  and, spreading her  arms, clutched  with
them at every pillar and corner, trying to catch Khoma. Finally she stopped,
shook her finger, and lay down in her coffin.
     The  philosopher still  could not come to his  senses and kept glancing
fearfully at the witch's cramped dwelling. Finally the  coffin suddenly tore
from  its place  and  with a whistle began  flying all  through  the church,
crossing the air in every direction. The philosopher saw it almost over  his
head, buc at the same time he saw that it could not enter the  circle he had
drawn, so he stepped  up his incantations. The  coffin crashed down  in  the
middle of the church and remained motionless. The corpse again rose  up from
it,  blue, turning green.  But just then came the distant crowing of a cock.
The corpse sank back into the coffin and the coffin lid slammed shut.
     The  philosopher's heart was pounding and sweat streamed from him; but,
encouraged by the crowing of the cock, he quickly finished reading the pages
he ought to have read earlier. At daybreak he was relieved by the beadle and
gray-haired  Yavtukh, who on this occasion  performed the duties of a church
warden.
     Having gone to lie down,  the philosopher was unable to fall asleep for
a long time, but fatigue overcame him and he slept till dinner. When he woke
up,  all the  events  of  the night seemed  to have happened in a  dream. To
bolster his strength, he  was  given a pint  of vodka. At dinner he  quickly
relaxed, contributed observations on  this and that, and ate a rather mature
pig almost  by  himself.  However,  he  did  not  venture  to  speak of  his
experiences in the church, from some feeling unaccountable to  himself, and,
to  the questions  of  the curious, replied: "Yes, there  were  all sorts of
wonders."  The  philosopher was one of those people in  whom, once they have
been  fed, an extraordinary philanthropy  awakens. Pipe in his teeth, he lay
looking at them all with extraordinarily sweet eyes and kept spitting to the
side.
     After dinner the philosopher  was in the highest spirits. He managed to
walk about  the whole village and make the acquaintance of nearly everybody;
he was  even  chased out of two cottages; one  comely young wench gave him a
decent whack on  the back with a shovel when he decided to feel and find out
what kind of material
     her blouse and kirtle were made  of. But the closer it came to evening,
the more pensive the philosopher grew. An hour before supper, almost all the
household people would gather to play kasha or kragli--a variety of skittles
in which long sticks are used instead of balls and the winner  has the right
to ride on his partner's back. Then the game  would become  very interesting
for  the spectator: often the cowherd, broad  as a  pancake, got astride the
swineherd, puny, short, consisting of nothing but wrinkles. Another time the
cowherd would bend his back  and Dorosh would  jump onto  it, always saying:
"Hey, what  a hefty  bull!"  Those  who were  more  sober-minded  sat by the
kitchen porch. They had an extremely serious air as they smoked their pipes,
even when the  young  people laughed  heartily  over  some  witticism of the
cowherd or Spirid. In vain did Khoma try to take part in this fun: some dark
thought,  like a nail, was lodged in  his head. Over supper, hard  though he
tried  to cheer himself up, fear kindled in  him as darkness spread over the
sky.
     "Well,  our  time has come,  mister student!"  the familiar gray-haired
Cossack said to him, getting up from his  place together with Dorosh. "Let's
go to work."
     Khoma was again taken to the  church in the same way; again he was left
alone, and the  door was locked on  him. No sooner  was  he left  alone than
timorousness began once more to creep into his breast. Again he saw the dark
icons,  the  gleaming frames,  and  the  familiar  black coffin  standing in
menacing silence and immobility in the middle of the church.
     "Well,"  he said,  "this  marvel doesn't make me  marvel now. It's only
frightening the  first time. Yes! it's only  a little frightening  the first
time, and then it's not frightening anymore, not frightening at all."
     He  hastened to the choir,  drew a circle around himself, spoke several
incantations, and began reading loudly, resolved not to  raise his eyes from
the book or pay attention to anything. He had been reading for about an hour
already, and had begun to weary and to cough a litde. He took a snuff bottle
from his pocket  and,  before  taking a pinch, timorously turned his gaze to
the coffin. His heart went cold.
     The corpse  was  already standing before him, right on the line, fixing
her  dead  green  eyes on him. The student shuddered and felt  a  chill  run
through all his veins. Dropping  his eyes to the book,  he began reading his
prayers and exorcisms louder and heard the corpse clack her  teeth again and
wave her arm, wishing to  seize  him. But,  looking out of the corner of one
eye, he  saw that the corpse was trying to catch  him in the wrong place and
evidently could not see him. She  was growling  hollowly, and began to utter
dreadful words  with  her  dead  lips;  they spluttered hoarsely,  like  the
gurgling  of boiling  pitch.  He  could  not have said  what they meant, but
something dreadful was contained in them. The philosopher fearfully realized
that she was reciting incantations.
     Wind swept through the church  at these words, and there was a noise as
of a multitude of fluttering wings. He heard wings beating against the glass
of  the church windows  and their iron frames,  heard claws  scratching iron
with a rasping noise and countless  powers  banging on the  doors, trying to
break  in. His heart pounded heavily  all  the while; shutting his  eyes, he
kept reading incantations and prayers.  At last  something suddenly whistled
far away. It  was the  distant crowing of a cock. The exhausted  philosopher
stopped and rested his soul.
     Those who  came to relieve the  philosopher found him barely  alive. He
was  leaning  back against the wall, goggle-eyed, and  stared fixedly at the
Cossacks who where shaking him. They practically  carried him out and had to
support him all the way. Coming to the master's yard, he  roused himself and
asked to be given a pint of  vodka. After drinking it, he  smoothed the hair
on his head and said:
     "There's all sorts  of trash  in  this world!  And  such horrors happen
as--oh, well. . ." At that the philosopher waved his hand.
     The circle that  had gathered around  him  hung their heads on  hearing
such  words.  Even  the  young boy  whom all  the servants  considered their
rightful representative when it came to such matters as cleaning the stables
or toting water, even this poor boy also stood gaping.
     Just  then a not entirely old wench passed by  in a tight-fitting apron
that displayed her round and firm shape, the old cook's assis-
     tant, a terrible flirt, who always found something to pin to her cap--a
bit of ribbon, or a carnation, or even a scrap of paper if there was nothing
else.
     "Greetings,  Khoma!" she  said,  seeing  the  philosopher. "Ai-yai-yai!
what's happened to you?" she cried out, clasping her hands.
     "What do you mean, foolish woman?"
     "Ah, my God! But you've gone all gray!"
     "Oh-oh! And it's the  truth she's telling!"  said  Spirid, studying him
intently. "You've really gone all gray like our old Yavtukh."
     On hearing this,  the philosopher rushed headlong to the kitchen, where
he had noticed a triangular piece of mirror glued to the wall and stained by
flies, in front of which forget-me-nots, periwinkles, and even a  garland of
marigolds were stuck, showing that it was intended for the  stylish  flirt's
toilette. He saw with horror the truth of  their words: half of his hair had
indeed turned white.
     Khoma Brut hung his head and gave himself over to reflection.
     "I'll  go  to the master,"  he said  finally, "tell him everything, and
explain that 1 don't want to  read  anymore. Let  him send me  back  to Kiev
right now."
     In such  thoughts,  he directed  his  steps  toward  the porch  of  the
master's house.
     The chief was  sitting almost motionless in his room; the same hopeless
sorrow  that  the philosopher had met  on his  face earlier  remained  there
still. Only his  cheeks were much more sunken than before. It was clear that
he had taken very little food, or perhaps not touched  anything  at all. His
extraordinary pallor gave him a sort of stony immobility.
     "Greetings, poor lad," he said, seeing Khoma, who stood  hat in hand in
the doorway. "Well, how is it with you? Everything fine?"
     "Fine,  fine indeed. Such devilish goings-on,  I'd like to just grab my
hat and flee wherever my legs will take me."
     "How's that?"
     "It's your daughter, sir ...  Reasonably considering, of course,  she's
of noble birth; nobody will maintain the contrary; only, not to anger you by
saying so, God rest her soul. . ."
     "What about my daughter?"
     "She's had  some  dealings with  Satan. Giving me  such  horrors [hat I
can't read any scriptures."
     "Read, read!  It was  not for  nothing  that she called  you.  She  was
worried about her soul, my little dove, and  wished to drive away all wicked
thoughts by prayer."
     "Have it your way, sir--by God, it's too much for me!"
     "Read, read!" the chief went  on in the same admonitory voice.  "You've
got one night left now. You'll do a Christian deed, and I'll reward you."
     "Rewards or no rewards... As  you  like, sir, only I won't read!" Khoma
said resolutely.
     "Listen, philosopher!" said the chief,  and his voice  grew strong  and
menacing, "I don't like these notions. You can do that in your seminary, but
not  with me: I'll give  you such a thrashing as your rector never  gave. Do
you know what a good leather whip is?"
     "How could I not!" said the philosopher, lowering his voice. "Everybody
knows what a leather whip is: an insufferable thing in large quantities."
     "Yes. Only you still don't know  what a scotching my boys can deliver!"
the chief  said menacingly,  getting to  his feet, and his face  acquired an
imperious   and   ferocious  expression  that  revealed  all  his  unbridled
character, only temporarily lulled by sorrow. "First they'll scotch you  for
me, then douse you with vodka, then start over. Go, go! do your business! If
you don't, you won't get up; if you do--a thousand pieces of gold!"
     "Oh-ho-ho!  Some  customer!"  the philosopher thought,  going  out. "No
joking with this one. Just you wait, brother: I'll cut and run so  fast your
dogs will never catch me."
     And Khoma resolved to escape without fail. He only waited till the time
after dinner, when  the  household people all had the habit of getting  into
the hay  under  the sheds and producing,  open-mouthed,  such  a snoring and
piping  that the yard came  to  resemble  a factory. This time finally came.
Even Yavtukh  stretched  out  in the  sun,  his eyes  closed.  In  fear  and
trembling, the philosopher quietly went to the garden, from where  it seemed
to him  it would be easier and less conspicuous to escape into  the  fields.
This garden, as commonly happens, was terribly overgrown and thus highly
     conducive to any secret undertaking. Except for one path beaten down on
household  necessity, the rest was hidden by thickly spreading cherry trees,
elders, burdock that stuck  its tall stalks with  clingy  pink knobs way up.
Hops covered the  top of  this whole  motley collection of trees and  bushes
like a  net,  forming a roof above them that spread over to the wattle fence
and hung down it in twining snakes along  with wild field  bluebells. Beyond
the wattle fence that served  as a boundary to the  garden,  there spread  a
whole forest of weeds which no one seemed to be interested in,  and a scythe
would have broken  to pieces  if  it  had decided to put its  blade to their
thick, woody stems.
     As  the  philosopher  went  to step over  the wattle fence,  his  teeth
chattered and his heart pounded so hard that it frightened him. The skirt of
his long chlamys  seemed stuck to  the ground, as if  someone had nailed  it
down. As he was stepping over, it seemed  to him that some  voice rattled in
his  ears with a  deafening whistle: "Where to, where to?"  The  philosopher
flitted into the  weeds and broke into a  run, constantly stumbling over old
roots and crushing moles underfoot. He  could  see that once he  got through
the weeds,  all he had to do was  run across a field, beyond which darkled a
thicket  of blackthorn,  where he  reckoned he would  be  safe,  and passing
through which he supposed he would come to the road straight to Kiev. He ran
across the  field at once and  wound up amid the  dense  blackthorns. He got
through the blackthorns,  leaving pieces of  his  frock coat  on every sharp
thorn in lieu of a toll, and found himself in a small hollow. A pussy willow
spread its hanging branches almost to  the ground. A small spring shone pure
as  silver.  The philosopher's first business was to  he  down and drink his
fill, hecause he felt unbearably thirsty.
     "Good  water!"  he said, wiping  his mouth. "I could  rest here."  "No,
better  keep  running. You might have somebody after you."  These words came
from above his ears. He turned: before him stood Yavtukh.
     "Yavtukh, you devil!" the philosopher thought to himself. "I could just
take you by the legs and  . . . and beat your vile mug in, and whatever else
you've got, with an oak log."
     "You oughtn't to have made such a detour," Yavtukh went on.
     "Much  better to take the  path  I did:  straight past the stables. And
it's too bad about the frock coat. Good broadcloth. How much did you pay per
yard? Anyhow, we've had a nice walk, it's time for home,"
     The  philosopher,  scratching  himself,  trudged  after  Yavtukh.  "The
accursed witch will give me a hot time now," he thought. "Though what's with
me, really?  What am 1 afraid  of?  Am I  not  a Cossack? I did read for two
nights, God  will help with the third.  The accursed witch must have done  a
good deal of sinning for the unclean powers to stand by her like that."
     These reflections occupied him  as he entered the master's yard. Having
encouraged  himself  with  such  observations,  he persuaded  liorosh,  who,
through  his  connection with the  steward,  occasionally had access to  the
master's  cellar,  to  fetch  a  jug of rotgut, and the two friends, sitting
under the  shed,  supped  not much less  than  half  a  bucket, so  that the
philosopher, suddenly getting to his feet, shouted: "Musicians! We must have
musicians!"--and, without waiting for  the musicians, broke into a trepak in
the cleared spot in the middle of the yard. He danced until it came time for
the afternoon snack, when the household people, standing in a circle  around
him, as is  usual in such cases, finally spat and  went away, saying,  "Look
how  long  the  mans  been dancing!"  Finally the philosopher went  right to
sleep, and only a good dousing with cold water could wake him up for supper.
Over  supper he  talked  about  what a Cossack is  and  how he should not be
afraid of anything in the world.
     "It's time," said Yavtukh, "let's go."
     "Bite on  a  nail,  you  accursed hog!"  thought  the philosopher,  and
getting to his feet, said:
     "Let's go."
     On the  way, the  philosopher constantly glanced to  right and left and
tried to talk a little with his guides. But Yavtukh kept mum; Dorosh himself
was  untalkative.  The night was infernal. Far off  a whole pack  of  wolves
howled. And even the dogs' barking was somehow frightening.
     "Seems  like it's something  else  howling--that's  not a  wolf,"  said
Dorosh.
     Yavtukh kept mum. The philosopher found nothing to say.
     They approached  the church and stepped in under  its decrepit  vaults,
which showed how little the owner of the  estate cared about God and his own
soul. Yavtukh and Dorosh  withdrew  as before, and  the philosopher remained
alone. Everything was the same. Everything had the same menacingly  familiar
look. He paused for a  minute. In the  middle, as ever, stood the motionless
coffin of the terrible witch. "I  won't  be  afraid,  by  God,  I  won't  be
afraid!"  he  said, and,  again drawing  a  circle around himself,  he began
recalling  all his  incantations. The  silence  was  dreadful;  the  candles
flickered,  pouring light  all over  the church. The philosopher turned  one
page, then another, and noticed that he was not reading what was in the book
at  all.  In fear he crossed  himself  and  began to sing. This cheered  him
somewhat: the reading went ahead, and  pages  flashed by one  after another.
Suddenly . . . amidst the silence  . . . the  iron  lid of the coffin  burst
with  a crack and  the dead body rose. It  was  still more horrible than the
first time. Its teeth clacked  horribly,  row against row; its lips twitched
convulsively and, with  wild  shrieks, incantations  came  rushing out. Wind
whirled  through the  church,  icons fell to the floor, broken glass dropped
from the windows. The doors tore from their hinges, and a numberless host of
monsters flew into God's  church. A  terrible  noise of wings and scratching
claws filled the whole church. Everything flew and rushed about, seeking the
philosopher everywhere.
     Khoma's head cleared  of the  last trace of drunkenness.  He  just kept
crossing himself and reading prayers  at random.  And at  the  same time  he
heard  the unclean powers flitting about him,  all but brushing him with the
tips of their wings and repulsive tails. He did not have the courage to look
at them  closely; he only saw the  whole wall  occupied by  a  huge  monster
standing amidst its own tangled hair as in a forest; through the web of hair
two eyes stared horribly, the eyebrows raised slightly.  Above it in the air
there  was  something like an immense  bubble,  with  a  thousand  tongs and
scorpion stings reaching from its middle. Black earth hung on them in lumps.
They all  looked at him,  searching,  unable  to see him, surrounded by  the
mysterious circle.
     "Bring Viy! Go get Viy!" the words of the dead body rang out.
     And suddenly there was silence in the church; the wolves' howling could
be heard far away, and soon heavy footsteps  rang out in  the church; with a
sidelong glance he saw them  leading in some squat, hefty, splay-footed man.
He was black earth  all over. His earth-covered legs and arms snick out like
strong, sinewy roots.  Heavily  he  trod,  stumbling  all the time. His long
eyelids were  lowered to the ground. With horror Khoma noticed that the face
on him  was made of iron. He was brought  in under the arms and put right by
the place where Khoma stood.
     "Lift my eyelids, I can't see!"  Viy said in a subterranean voice-- and
the entire host rushed to lift his eyelids.
     "Don't look!" some inner voice  whispered to the philosopher. He  could
not help himself and looked.
     "There he is!" Viy cried and fixed an iron finger on him.  And all that
were there fell  upon the philosopher. Breathless, he crashed  to the ground
and straightaway the spirit flew out of him in terror.
     A cockcrow rang out. This was already  the second  cockcrow; the gnomes
had  mjssed  the  first. The  frightened spirits rushed  pell-mell  for  the
windows and doors  in order to fly out quickly, but  nothing  doing: and  so
they stayed there, stuck in the doors and windows. When the priest came  in,
he stopped at the sight of such disgrace in God's sanctuary and did not dare
serve a  panikhida9  in such a  place.  So  the  church  remained
forever with monsters stuck in its doors and windows, overgrown with forest,
roots, weeds, wild blackthorn; and no one now can find the path to it.
     when  rumors of  this  reached Kiev and the theologian Khalyava  heard,
finally,  that such had  been  the lot of the philosopher  Khoma, he fell to
thinking for a whole hour. In the meantime great  changes  had happened with
him. Fortune had smiled on  him: upon  completing his studies,  he had  been
made bell-ringer of the tallest belfry, and he almost always went about with
a bloody nose, because the wooden stairs of the belfry had been put together
every which way.
     "Have you heard what happened with Khonia?" Tiberiy Goro-
     bets, by then a philosopher and sporting a fresh mustache, said, coming
up to him.
     "It's what God granted him," said the ringer Khalyava. "Let's go to the
tavern and commemorate his soul!"
     The young philosopher, who had come into his rights with the passion of
an enthusiast, so that his trousers and frock coat and even his hat gave off
a whiff of spirits and coarse tobacco, instantly expressed his readiness.
     "Khoma  was a nice man!" said the ringer, as the lame tavern keeper set
the third mug  down  in front  of him.  "A fine  man!  And he  perished  for
nothing!"
     "No, I know why he perished: because he  got scared. If he hadn't  been
scared, the witch couldn't have done anything to him. You just have to cross
yourself  and  spit right on her tail, and  nothing will  happen. I know all
about it.  Here  in  Kiev,  the  women sitting  in the  marketplace are  all
witches."
     To this the ringer  nodded as a  sign of agreement.  But, noticing that
his tongue was unable to articulate a single word,  he carefully got up from
the table and, swaying  from  side to side, went off to hide himself  in the
remotest part  of the weeds. Withal  not  forgetting, out  of long habit, to
steal an old boot sole that was lying on a bench.