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

“What dost thou want?” roughly demanded the blacksmith, stepping out.

Choop, on recognising the blacksmith’s voice, stepped a little aside. “No, surely this is not my cottage,” said he to himself; “the blacksmith would not come to my cottage. And yet⁠—now I look at it again, it cannot be his. Whose then, can it be? Ah! how came I not to know it at once! it is the cottage of lame Levchenko, who has lately married a young wife; his is the only one like mine. That is the reason why it seemed so strange to me that I got home so soon. But, let me see, why is the blacksmith here? Levchenko, as far as I know, is now sitting at the clerk’s. Eh! he! he! he! the blacksmith comes to see his young wife! That’s what it is! Well, now I see it all!”

“Who art thou? and what hast thou to do lurking about this door?” asked the blacksmith, in a still harsher voice, and coming nearer.

“No,” thought Choop, “I’ll not tell him who I am; he might beat me, the cursed fellow!” and then, changing his voice, answered, “My good man, I come here in order to amuse you, by singing carols beneath your window.”

“Go to the devil with thy carols!” angrily cried Vakoola. “What dost thou wait for? didst thou hear me? be gone, directly.”

Choop himself had already the same prudent intention; but he felt cross at being obliged to obey the blacksmith’s command. Some evil spirit seemed to prompt him to say something contrary to Vakoola.

“What makes thee shout in that way?” asked he in the same assumed voice; “my intention is to sing a carol, and that is all.”

“Ah! words are not sufficient for thee!” and immediately after, Choop felt a heavy stroke fall upon his shoulders.

“Now, I see, thou art getting quarrelsome!” said he, retreating a few paces.

“Begone, begone!” exclaimed the blacksmith, striking again.

“What now!” exclaimed Choop, in a voice which expressed at the same time pain, anger, and fear. “I see thou quarrelest in good earnest, and strikest hard.”

“Begone, begone!” again exclaimed the blacksmith, and violently shut the door.

“Look, what a bully!” said Choop, once more alone in the street. “But thou hadst better not come near me! There’s a man for you! giving thyself such airs, too! Dost thou think there is no one to bring thee to reason? I will go, my dear fellow, and to the police-officer will I go. I’ll teach thee who I am! I care not for thy being blacksmith and painter. However, I must see to my back and shoulders: I think there are bruises on them. The devil’s son strikes hard, it seems. It is a pity it’s so cold, I cannot take off my fur coat. Stay a while, confounded blacksmith; may the devil break thy bones and thy smithy too! Take thy time⁠—I will make thee dance, cursed squabbler! But, now I think of it, if he is not at home, Solokha must be alone. Hem! her dwelling is not far from here; shall I go? At this time nobody will trouble us. Perhaps I may. Ah! that cursed blacksmith, how he has beaten me!”

And Choop, rubbing his back, went in another direction. The pleasure which was in store for him in meeting Solokha, diverted his thoughts from his pain, and made him quite insensible to the snow and ice, which, notwithstanding the whistling of the wind, might be heard cracking all around. Sometimes a half-benignant smile brightened his face, whose beard and mustachios were whitened over by snow with the same rapidity as that displayed by a barber who has tyrannically got, hold of the nose of his victim. But for the snow which danced backwards and forwards before the eyes, Choop might have been seen a long time, stopping now and then to rub his back, muttering, “How painfully that cursed blacksmith has beaten me!” and then proceeding on his way.

At the time when the dashing gentleman, with a tail and a goat’s beard, flew out of the chimney, and then into, the chimney again, the pouch which hung by a shoulder-belt at his side, and in which he had hidden the stolen moon, in some way or other caught in something in the oven, flew open, and the moon, availing herself of the opportunity, mounted through the chimney of Solokha’s cottage and rose majestically in the sky. It grew light all at once; the storm subsided; the snow-covered fields seemed all over with silver, set with crystal stars; even the frost seemed to have grown milder; crowds of lads and lasses made their appearance with sacks upon their shoulders; songs resounded, and but few cottagers were without a band of carollers. How beautifully the moon shines! It would be difficult to describe the charm one feels in sauntering on such a night among the troops of maidens who laugh and sing, and of lads who are ready to adopt every trick and invention suggested by the gay and smiling night. The tightly-belted fur coat is warm; the frost makes one’s cheeks tingle more sharply; and the Cunning One, himself, seems, from behind your back, to urge you to all kinds of frolics. A crowd of maidens, with sacks, pushed their way into Choop’s cottage, surrounded Oxana, and bewildered the blacksmith by their shouts, their laughter, and their stories. Everyone was in haste to tell something new to the beauty; some unloaded their sacks, and boasted of the quantity of loaves, sausages, and curd dumplings which they had already received in reward for their carolling. Oxana seemed to be all pleasure and joy, went on chattering, first with one, then with another, and never for a moment ceased laughing. The blacksmith looked with anger and envy at her joy, and