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

and stopped in amazement. “What sacks are these? somebody has left them on the road,” said he, looking round. “There must be pork for a certainty in them! Who can it be? who has had the good luck to get so many donations? Were there nothing more than buckwheat cakes and millet-biscuits⁠—why, that would be well enough! But supposing there were only loaves, well, they are welcome too! The Jewess gives a glass of brandy for every loaf. I had better bring them out of the way at once, lest anybody should see them!” and he lifted on his shoulders the sack in which sat Choop and the clerk, but feeling it to be too heavy, “No,” said he, “I could not carry it home alone. Now, here comes, as if purposely, the weaver, Shapoovalenko! Good evening, Ostap!”

“Good evening,” said the weaver, stopping.

“Where art thou going?”

“I am walking without any purpose, just where my legs carry me.”

“Well, my good man, help me to carry off these sacks; some caroller has left them here in the midst of the road. We will divide the booty between us.”

“And what is there in the sacks? rolls or loaves?”

“Plenty of everything, I should think.” And both hastily snatched sticks out of a palisade, laid one of the sacks upon them, and carried it away on their shoulders.

“Where shall we carry it? to the brandy shop?” asked the weaver, leading the way.

“I thought, too, of carrying it there; but the vile Jewess will not give us credit; she will think we have stolen it somewhere, the more so that I have just left her shop. We had better carry it to my cottage. Nobody will interfere with us; my wife is not at home.”

“Art thou sure that she is not at home?” asked the weaver warily.

“Thank Heaven, I am not yet out of my mind,” answered the kinsman; “what should I do there if she were at home? I expect she will ramble about all night with the women.”

“Who is there!” cried the kinsman’s wife, hearing the noise which the two friends made in coming into the passage with the sack.

The kinsman was quite aghast.

“What now?” muttered the weaver, letting his arms drop.

The kinsman’s wife was one of those treasures which are often found in this good world of ours. Like her husband, she scarcely ever remained at home, but went all day long fawning among wealthy, gossiping old women; paid them different compliments, ate their donations with great appetite, and beat her husband only in the morning, because it was the only time that she saw him. Their cottage was even older than the trousers of the village scribe. Many holes in the roof remained uncovered and without thatch; of the palisade round the house, few remnants existed, for no one who was going out, ever took with him a stick to drive away the dogs, but went round by the kinsman’s kitchen garden, and got one out of his palisade. Sometimes no fire was lighted in the cottage for three days together. Everything which the affectionate wife succeeded in obtaining from kind people, was hidden by her as far as possible out of the reach of her husband; and if he had got anything which he had not had the time to sell at the brandy shop, she invariably snatched it from him. However meek the kinsman’s temper might be, he did not like to yield to her at once; for which reason, he generally left the house with black eyes, and his dear better-half went moaning to tell stories to the old women about the ill conduct of her husband, and the blows she had received at his hands.

Now, it is easy to understand the displeasure of the weaver and the kinsman at her sudden appearance. Putting the sack on the ground, they took up a position of defence in front of it, and covered it with the wide skirts of their coats; but it was already too late. The kinsman’s wife, although her old eyes had grown dim, saw the sack at once. “That’s good,” she said, with the countenance of a hawk at the sight of its prey! “that’s good of you to have collected so much; That’s the way good people always behave! But it cannot be! I think you must have stolen it somewhere; show me directly what you have got there!⁠—show me the sack directly! Do you hear me?”

“May the bald devil show it to thee! we will not,” answered the kinsman, assuming an air of dogged resolution.

“Why should we?” said the weaver? “the sack is ours, not thine.”

“Thou shalt show it to me, thou good-for-nothing drunkard,” said she, giving the tall kinsman a blow under his chin, and pushing her way to the sack. The kinsman and the weaver, however, stood her attack courageously, and drove her back; but had hardly time to recover themselves, when the woman darted once more into the passage, this time with a poker in her hand. In no time she gave a cut over her husband’s fingers, another on the weaver’s hand, and stood beside the sack.

“Why did we let her go?” said the weaver, coming to his senses.

“Why did we indeed? and why didst thou?” said the kinsman.

“Your poker seems to be an iron one!” said the weaver, after keeping silent for a while, and scratching his back. “My wife bought one at the fair last year; well, hers is not to be compared⁠—does not hurt at all.”

The triumphant dame, in the meanwhile, set her candle on the floor, opened the sack, and looked into it.

But her old eyes, which had so quickly caught sight of the sack, for this time deceived her. “Why, here lies a whole boar!” cried she, clapping her hands with delight.

“A boar, a whole boar! dost hear?” said the weaver, giving the kinsman a push. “And thou alone art to blame?”

“What’s to be done?” muttered the kinsman, shrugging his shoulders.

“How, what? why are we