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

“Away, away with thee! it is our boar!” cried the weaver, advancing.

“Away, away with thee, she devil! it is not thy property,” said the kinsman.

The old hag once more took up the poker, but at the same moment Choop stepped out of the sack, and stood in the middle of the passage stretching his limbs like a man just awake from a long sleep.

The kinsman’s wife shrieked in terror, while the others opened their mouths in amazement.

“What did she say, then, the old fool⁠—that it was a boar?”

“It’s not a boar!” said the kinsman, straining his eyes.

“Just see, what a man someone has thrown into the sack,” said the weaver, stepping back in a fright. “They may say what they will⁠—the evil spirit must have lent his hand to the work; the man could never have gone through a window.”

“ ’Tis my kinsman,” cried the kinsman, after having looked at Choop.

“And who else should it be, then?” said Choop, laughing. “Was it not a capital trick of mine? And you thought of eating me like pork? Well, I’ll give you good news: there is something lying at the bottom of the sack; if it be not a boar, it must be a sucking-pig, or something of the sort. All the time there was something moving under me.”

The weaver and the kinsman rushed to the sack, the wife caught hold of it on the other side, and the fight would have been renewed, had not the clerk, who saw no escape left, crept out of the sack.

The kinsman’s wife, quite stupified, let go the clerk’s leg, which she had taken hold of, in order to drag him out of the sack.

“There’s another one!” cried the weaver with terror; “the devil knows what happens now in the world⁠—it’s enough to send one mad. No more sausages or loaves⁠—men are thrown into the sacks.”

“ ’Tis the devil!” muttered Choop, more astonished than anyone. “Well now, Solokha!⁠—and to put the clerk in a sack too! That is why I saw her room all full of sacks. Now, I have it: she has got two men in each of them; and I thought that I was the only one. Well now, Solokha!”

The maidens were somewhat astonished at finding only one sack left. “There is nothing to be done; we must content ourselves with this one,” said Oxana. They all went at once to the sack, and succeeded in lifting it upon the sledge. The elder resolved to keep quiet, considering that if he cried out, and asked them to undo the sack, and let him out, the stupid girls would run away, fearing they had got the devil in the sack, and he would be left in the street till the next morning. Meanwhile, the maidens, with one accord, taking one another by the hand, flew like the wind with the sledge over the crisp snow. Many of them, for fun, sat down upon the sledge; some went right upon the elder’s head. But he was determined to bear everything. At last they reached Oxana’s house, opened the doors of the passage and of the room, and with shouts of laughter brought in the sack. “Let us see what we have got here,” cried they, and hastily began to undo the sack. At this juncture, the hiccups of the elder (which had not ceased for a moment all the time he had been sitting in the sack), increased to such a degree that he could not refrain from giving vent to them in the loudest key. “Ah! there is somebody in the sack!” shrieked the maidens, and they darted in a fright towards the door.

“What does this mean?” said Choop, stepping in. “Where are you rushing, like mad things?”

“Ah! father,” answered Oxana, “there is somebody sitting in the sack!”

“In what sack? Where did you get this sack from?”

“The blacksmith threw it down in the middle of the road,” was the answer.

“I thought as much!” muttered Choop. “Well, what are you afraid of, then? Let us see. Well, my good man (excuse me for not calling thee by thy Christian and surname), please to make thy way out of the sack.”

The elder came out.

“Lord have mercy upon us!” cried the maidens.

“The elder was in, too!” thought Choop to himself, looking at him from head to foot, as if not trusting his eyes. “There now! Eh!” and he could say no more. The elder felt no less confused, and he knew not what to say. “It seems to be rather cold out of doors?” asked he, turning to Choop.

“Yes! the frost is rather severe,” answered Choop. “Do tell me, what dost thou use to black thy boots with: tallow or tar?”23 He did not at all wish to put this question; he intended to ask⁠—How didst thou come to be in this sack? but he knew not himself how it was that his tongue asked quite another question.

“I prefer tar,” answered the elder. “Well, goodbye, Choop,” said he, and putting his cap on, he stepped out of the room.

“What a fool I was to ask him what he uses to black his boots with,” muttered Choop, looking at the door out of which the elder had just gone.

“Well, Solokha! To put such a man into a sack! May the devil take her; and I, fool that I was⁠—but where is that infernal sack?”

“I threw it into the corner,” said Oxana, “there is nothing more in it.”

“I know these tricks well! Nothing in it, indeed! Give it me directly; there must be one more! Shake it well. Is there nobody? Abominable woman! And yet to look at her one would think she must be a saint, that she never had a sin”⁠—

But let us leave Choop giving vent to his anger, and return to the blacksmith; the more so as time is running away, and by the clock it must be near nine.

At first, Vakoola could not