Short Fiction - Nikolai Gogol (best selling autobiographies TXT) 📗

“Is it true that thy mother is a witch?” asked Oxana laughing; and the blacksmith felt as if everything within him laughed too, as if that laugh had found an echo in his heart and in all his veins; and at the same time he felt provoked at having no right to cover with kisses that pretty laughing face.

“What do I care about my mother! Thou art my mother, my father⁠—all that I hold precious in the world! Should the Czar send for me to his presence and say to me, ‘Blacksmith Vakoola, ask of me whatever I have best in my realm⁠—I’ll give it all to thee; I’ll order to have made for thee a golden smithy, where thou shalt forge with silver hammers.’ ‘I’ll none of it,’ would I answer the Czar. ‘I’ll have no precious stones, no golden smithy, no, not even the whole of thy realm⁠—give me only my Oxana!’ ”

“Now, only see what a man thou art! But my father has got another idea in his head; thou’lt see if he does not marry thy mother!”20 said Oxana with an arch smile. “But what can it mean? the maidens are not yet come⁠—it is high time for carolling. I am getting dull.”

“Never mind about them, my beauty!”

“But, of course, I do mind; they will doubtless bring some lads with them, and then, how merry we shall be! I fancy all the droll stories that will be told!”

“So thou feelest merry with them?”

“Of course merrier than with thee. Ah! there is somebody knocking at the door; it must be the maidens and the lads!”

“Why need I stay any longer?” thought the blacksmith. “She laughs at me; she cares no more about me than about a rust-eaten horseshoe. But, be it so. I will at least give no one an opportunity to laugh at me. Let me only mark who it is she prefers to me. I’ll teach him how to”⁠—

His meditation was cut short by a loud knocking at the door, and a harsh “Open the door,” rendered still harsher by the frost.

“Be quiet, I’ll go and open it myself,” said the blacksmith, stepping into the passage with the firm intention of giving vent to his wrath by breaking the bones of the first man who should come in his way.

The frost increased, and it became so cold that the devil went hopping from one hoof to the other, and blowing his fingers to warm his benumbed hands. And, of course, he could not feel otherwise than quite frozen: all day long he did nothing but saunter about hell, where, as everybody knows, it is by no means so cold as in our winter air; and where, with his cap on his head, and standing before a furnace as if really a cook, he felt as much pleasure in roasting sinners as a peasant’s wife feels at frying sausages for Christmas. The witch, though warmly clad, felt cold too, so lifting up her arms, and putting one foot before the other, just as if she were skating, without moving a limb, she slid down as if from a sloping ice mountain right into the chimney. The devil followed her example; but as this creature is swifter than any boot-wearing beau, it is not at all astonishing that at the very entrance of the chimney, he went down upon the shoulders of the witch and both slipped down together into a wide oven, with pots all round it. The lady traveller first of all noiselessly opened the oven-door a little, to see if her son Vakoola had not brought home some party of friends; but there being nobody in the room, and only some sacks lying in the middle of it on the floor, she crept out of the oven, took off her warm coat, put her dress in order, and was quite tidy in no time, so that nobody could ever possibly have suspected her of having ridden on a besom a minute before.

The mother of the blacksmith Vakoola was not more than forty; she was neither handsome nor plain; indeed it is difficult to be handsome at that age. Yet, she knew well how to make herself pleasant to the aged Cossacks (who, by the by, did not care much about a handsome face); many went to call upon her, the elder, Assip Nikiphorovitch the clerk (of course when his wife was from home), the Cossack Kornius Choop, the Cossack Kassian Sverbygooze. At all events this must be said for her, she perfectly well understood how to manage with them; none of them ever suspected for a moment that he had a rival. Was a pious peasant going home from church on some holiday; or was a Cossack, in bad weather, on his way to the brandy-shop; what should prevent him from paying Solokha a visit, to eat some greasy curd dumplings with sour cream, and to have a gossip with the talkative and good-natured mistress of the cottage? And the Cossack made a long circuit on his way to the brandy-shop, and called it “just looking in as he passed.” When Solokha went to church on a holiday, she always wore a gay-coloured petticoat, with another short blue one over it, adorned with two gold braids, sewed on behind it in the shape of two curly mustachios. When she took her place at the right side of the church, the clerk was sure to cough and twinkle his eyes at her; the elder twirled his mustachios, twisted his crown-lock of hair round his ear, and said to his neighbour, “A splendid woman! a devilish fine woman!” Solokha nodded to everyone, and everyone thought that Solokha nodded to him alone. But those who liked to pry into other people’s business, noticed that Solokha exerted the utmost of her civility towards the Cossack Choop.

Choop was a widower; eight ricks of corn stood always before his cottage: two strong bulls used to