Gogol the night before christmas full content. Read the online book The Night Before Christmas

Introduction. general description story, the main idea.

"The Night Before Christmas" - an outstanding story by Gogol, was filmed many times and sincerely loved domestic reader... Included in the cycle of stories "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka." Incredible fantastic events and a lively language of description make the story bright and distinctive. It is literally saturated with folklore, folk tales and legends.

The ideological meaning of the work can be most fully understood by analyzing the views of Gogol. At that time, he more and more thought about the greatness of democracy over the blind patriarchal way of life of contemporary Russia. It was fueled by progressive trends in literature and science. The life of the landowners, their slow-wittedness and adherence to old ideals irritated Gogol, and he repeatedly ridiculed their miserable way of life and primitive thinking.

It is very important that in "The Night Before Christmas", good triumphs over evil, and light holds the upper hand over darkness. Vakula is courageous and generous, he does not shy away and does not fold his hands in the face of difficulties. Gogol wanted to see his contemporaries exactly like this, similar to the gallant epic heroes. However, the reality was in stark contrast to his idealized views.

Using the example of Vakula, the author tries to prove that only by doing good deeds, leading a righteous life, one can become happy man... The power of money and the violation of religious values ​​will bring a person to the very bottom, make him an immoral, rotting person, doomed to a joyless existence.

The entire description is permeated with deep author's humor. Just remember with what mocking irony he describes the empress's court entourage. Gogol portrays the cloisters of the St. Petersburg Palace as ingratiating and servile people looking into the mouths of their superiors.

History of creation

The book "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka" was published in 1831, at the same time the "Night before Christmas" was also written. The stories of the cycle were born by Gogol quickly and naturally. It is not known for certain when Gogol began work on the story, and when he first had the idea of ​​creating it. There is evidence that he put the first words on paper a year before the book was published. Chronologically, the events described in the story fall on a period of about 50 years earlier than real time, namely the reign of Catherine II and the last deputation of the Cossacks.

Analysis of the work

The main plot. Features of the compositional structure.

(Illustration by Alexander Pavlovich Bubnov to Nikolai Gogol "The Night Before Christmas")

The plot is tied to the adventures of the main character - the blacksmith Vakula and his love for the eccentric beauty Oksana. The conversation of the young people serves as the plot of the story, the first beauty in the village promises Vakula a marriage in exchange for the tsar's slippers. The girl is not at all going to fulfill her word, she laughs at the young man, realizing that he will not be able to fulfill her instructions. But, according to the peculiarities of constructing the genre of a fairy tale, Vakula manages to fulfill the desire of a beauty, the devil helps him in this. Vakula's flight to St. Petersburg to see the Empress is the culmination of the story. The outcome is the wedding of young people and the reconciliation of Vakula with the bride's father, with whom they had a broken relationship.

In terms of genre, the story tends more towards the fabulous type of addition. According to the laws of a fairy tale, we can see a happy ending at the end of the story. In addition, many heroes originate precisely from the origins of ancient Russian legends, we observe the magic and power of dark forces over the world of ordinary people.

Images of the main characters

Blacksmith Vakula

Main characters - real characters, a resident of the farm. Blacksmith Vakula is a real Ukrainian man, quick-tempered, but at the same time extremely decent and honest. He is a hard worker, a good son for his parents and, for sure, will become an excellent husband and father. He is simple from the point of view of mental organization, does not hang in the clouds and has an open, rather kind disposition. He achieves everything thanks to the firmness of character and unbending spirit.

Black-eyed Oksana is the main beauty and an enviable bride. She is proud and arrogant, due to her youth she has a hot-tempered temperament, frivolous and windy. Oksana is constantly surrounded by male attention, loved by her father, tries to dress in the most elegant dresses and endlessly admires her own reflection in the mirror. When she found out that the boys in chorus proclaimed her the first beauty, she began to behave appropriately, constantly annoying everyone with her whims. But young suitors only amuse such behavior, and they continue to run in a crowd after the girl.

In addition to the main characters of the story, many equally striking secondary characters are described. Vakula's mother, the witch Solokha, who also appeared in the Sorochinskaya Yarmarka, is a widow. Outwardly attractive, flirtatious lady, twisting tricks with the devil. Despite the fact that she personifies the dark force, her image is described very attractively and does not repulse the reader in the least. Just like Oksana, Solokha is full of admirers, including the ironically depicted clerk.

Conclusion

Immediately after its publication, the story was recognized as unusually poetic and exciting. Gogol so skillfully conveys the whole flavor of the Ukrainian village that the reader seems to manage to stay there himself and immerse himself in this magical world while reading the book. Gogol draws all his ideas from folk legends: the devil who stole the moon, a witch flying on a broomstick, and so on. With his characteristic artistic manner, he remakes the images in his own poetic way, making them unique and vivid. Real events are intertwined with fabulous ones so closely that the fine line between them is completely lost - this is another feature of Gogol's writing genius, which permeates all of his work and gives it its characteristic features.

Gogol's creativity, filled with deepest meaning stories and novels are considered to be exemplary not only in domestic, but also in world literature. He so took possession of the minds and souls of his readers, was able to find such deep strings of the human soul that his work is deservedly considered selfless.

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol

CHRISTMAS EVE

The last day before Christmas is over. Winter, clear night has come. The stars looked. The month majestically ascended to heaven to shine a light on good people and the whole world, so that everyone would have fun caroling and praising Christ. The frost was stronger than in the morning; but on the other hand it was so quiet that the cry of frost under the boot could be heard half a mile away. Not a single crowd of lads has yet appeared under the windows of the huts; for a month I was only peeking into them furtively, as if causing the girls who were dressing up to run out into the skiddy snow as soon as possible. Then smoke poured through the chimney of one hut in clouds and went like a cloud across the sky, and together with the smoke a witch rose astride a broomstick.

If at this time the Sorochin assessor was passing by on a troika of common horses, in a hat with a lamb band, made in the style of an Uhlan, in a blue sheepskin coat lined with black smushki, with a devilishly woven whip, with which he has the habit of urging his driver, he would have correctly noticed her, because not a single witch in the world escapes from the Sorochin assessor. He knows in every way how many pigs each woman has, and how many canvases are in the chest, and what exactly from his dress and household a good man will lay on Sunday in a shank. But the Sorochinsky assessor did not pass, and what does he care about strangers, he has his own volost. And the witch, meanwhile, rose so high that she glimmered above with only one black speck. But wherever a speck appeared, there the stars, one after another, disappeared in the sky. Soon the witch pulled on their full sleeve. Three or four were still shining. Suddenly, on the other hand, another speck appeared, increased, began to stretch, and there was no longer a speck. A short-sighted man, at least put on his nose, instead of glasses, wheels from the commissar's chaise, and then he would not have recognized what it is. In front, it was completely German: a narrow, incessantly twirling and sniffing everything that came across, the muzzle ended, like our pigs, in a round snout; the legs were so thin that if the Jareskov head had such, he would have broken them in the first cossack. But at the back he was a real provincial solicitor in a uniform, because he had a tail hanging as sharp and long as the current uniform coat-tails; only by the goat beard under the muzzle, by the small horns sticking out on his head, and that he was not whiter than a chimney sweep, one could guess that he was not a German and not a provincial solicitor, but simply a devil, who had been left to stagger the last night white light and learn sins kind people... Tomorrow, with the first bells for matins, he will run without looking back, tail between his legs, to his den. Meanwhile the devil crept slowly towards the month, and was about to reach out to grab him; but suddenly he jerked her back, as if burnt, sucked his fingers, threw his foot and ran from the other side, and again jumped back and jerked his hand away. However, despite all the failures, the cunning devil did not leave his mischief. Running up, he suddenly grabbed a month with both hands, grimacing and blowing, tossed it from one hand to the other, like a peasant who with bare hands fire for your cradle; finally, hastily put it in his pocket and, as if he had never been in anything, ran on. In Dikanka, no one heard how the devil stole a month. True, the volost clerk, getting out of the shank on all fours, saw that for a month, for no reason, no reason, he was dancing in heaven, and assured the whole village with God; but the laity shook their heads and even laughed at him. But what was the reason for the devil to decide on such a lawless deed? And here's what: he knew that the rich Cossack Chub was invited by the clerk to the kutya, where they would be: head; the clerk's relative, who came from the bishop's singing, in a blue frock coat, who took the lowest bass; Cossack Sverbyguz and some others; where, besides kuti, there will be varenukha, vodka distilled for saffron and a lot of other edibles. Meanwhile, his daughter, a beauty in the whole village, will stay at home, and a blacksmith, a strong man and a fellow at any place, who was devilishly repulsive to the sermons of Father Kondrat, will probably come to her daughter. In his leisure time, the blacksmith was engaged in painting and was known as the best painter in the whole area. The centurion L ... co, who was still alive at that time, called him on purpose to Poltava to paint a plank fence near his house. All the bowls from which the Dikan Cossacks sipped borscht were painted by a blacksmith. The blacksmith was a God-fearing man and often painted images of saints, and now you can still find in T ... the church of his Evangelist Luke. But the triumph of his art was one painting, painted on the church wall in the right vestibule, in which he depicted Saint Peter on the day of the Last Judgment, with keys in his hands, casting out an evil spirit from hell: the frightened devil rushed in all directions, anticipating his death, and the previously imprisoned sinners beat and chased him with whips, logs and whatever came to hand. While the painter was working on this picture and writing it on a large wooden board, the devil did his best to interfere with him: he pushed it invisibly under the arm, lifted ash from the furnace in the smithy and sprinkled it on the picture; but, in spite of everything, the work was over, the board was brought into the church and embedded in the wall of the narthex, and from that time the devil vowed to take revenge on the blacksmith. Only one night remained for him to stagger in the world; but that night, too, he tried to find something to vent his anger on the blacksmith. And for this he decided to steal a month, in the hope that old Chub was lazy and not easy to climb, but he was not so close to the clerk from the hut: the road went behind the village, past the mills, past the cemetery, skirting a ravine. Even during the month's night, varenukha and vodka infused with saffron could have lured Chub; but in such darkness it would hardly have been possible for anyone to pull him off the stove and call him out of the hut. And the blacksmith, who has long been at odds with him, in his presence would never dare to go to his daughter, despite his strength. In this way, as soon as the devil hid his month in his pocket, suddenly it became so dark all over the world that not everyone would find a way to the shank, not only to the clerk. The witch, seeing herself suddenly in the dark, screamed. Then the devil, having rode up like a petty demon, grabbed her by the arm and began to whisper in his ear what is usually whispered to the entire female family. Wonderfully arranged in our world! Everything that lives in it, everything is trying to adopt and imitate one another. Before, it happened that in Mirgorod one judge and a mayor used to wander in winter in sheepskin coats covered with cloth, and all the petty officials simply wore naked; now both the assessor and the podkomoriy have got themselves new fur coats made from Reshelylov's smushies with a cloth cover. The clerk and volost clerk, in her third year, took a blue Chinese woman for six hryvnia arshins. The sexton made himself nanke trousers and a vest from striped garus for the summer. In a word, everything climbs into people! When these people will not be vain! You can bet that many will find it surprising to see the devil set off for himself as well. The most annoying thing is that he truly imagines himself a handsome man, while the figure is ashamed to look. Mug, as Foma Grigorievich says, is an abomination an abomination, but he also builds love chickens! But in the sky and under the sky it became so dark that it was impossible to see anything what was happening further between them.

* * *

"So you, godfather, have not yet been at the clerk's new hut?" - Said the Cossack Chub, coming out of the door of his hut, to a lean, tall, in a short sheepskin coat, a peasant with an overgrown beard, showing that for more than two weeks a piece of braid had not touched her, with which peasants usually shave their beards for lack of a razor. “There will now be a good drink there! Chub continued, grinning at his face. - As soon as we do not be late. At this, Chub straightened his belt, which tightly intercepted his sheepskin coat, pulled on his cap tighter, squeezed the whip in his hand — fear and a thunderstorm of annoying dogs; but, looking up, he stopped ... “What a devil! Look! look, Panas! .. "

What? - said the godfather and raised his head up also.

Like what? not a month!

What an abyss! Indeed, there is no month.

Something that is not, - uttered Chub with some annoyance at the constant indifference of his godfather. “I suppose you don’t need it.”

What should I do!

“It was necessary,” Chub continued, wiping his mustache with his sleeve, “some devil, so that he would not have a chance, the dog, to drink a glass of vodka in the morning, to intervene! window: night is a miracle! Light; snow shines with a month. Everything was visible as in the daytime. I didn't have time to go out the door, and now, at least gouge out an eye! " Chub grumbled and scolded for a long time, and meanwhile, at the same time, he was thinking about what to decide on. He wanted to death to chat about all sorts of nonsense at the clerk's, where, without any doubt, the head, and the visiting bass, and the tar Mikita, who went every two weeks to Poltava for the auction and made such jokes that all the laymen took up their bellies laughing. Chub had already seen the varenukha mentally standing on the table. It was all tempting, really; but the darkness of the night reminded him of that laziness which was so dear to all the Cossacks. How good it would be to lie now, legs tucked under you, on the couch, quietly smoking the cradle and listening through the intoxicating slumber to the carols and songs of cheerful boys and girls crowding in heaps under the windows. He would, without any doubt, decide on the latter if he were alone; but now both are not so bored and scared to walk in the dark night, and they didn’t want to appear in front of others as lazy or cowardly. Having finished the swearing, he turned to his godfather again.

The last day before Christmas is over. Winter, clear night entered. The stars looked. The month majestically ascended to heaven to shine a light on good people and the whole world, so that everyone would have fun caroling and praising Christ. The frost was stronger than in the morning; but on the other hand it was so quiet that the cry of frost under the boot could be heard half a mile away. Not a single crowd of lads has yet appeared under the windows of the huts; for a month I was only peeking into them furtively, as if causing the girls who were dressing up to run out into the skiddy snow as soon as possible. Then smoke poured through the chimney of one hut in clouds and went like a cloud across the sky, and together with the smoke a witch rose astride a broomstick.

"The Night Before Christmas" ("Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka"). Film 1961

If at this time the Sorochinsky assessor rode by on a troika of common horses, in a cap with a lamb band, made in the style of an Uhlan, in a blue sheepskin coat lined with black smushki, with a devilishly woven whip, with which he has the habit of urging his driver, then he would surely , noticed her, because not a single witch in the world escapes from the Sorochin assessor. He knows in every way how many pigs each woman has, and how many canvases are in the chest, and what exactly from his dress and household a good man will lay on Sunday in a shank. But the Sorochinsky assessor did not pass, and what does he care about strangers, he has his own volost. And meanwhile the witch rose so high that she glimmered above with only one black speck. But wherever a speck appeared, there the stars, one after another, disappeared in the sky. Soon the witch pulled on their full sleeve. Three or four were still shining. Suddenly, from the opposite side, another speck appeared, increased, began to stretch, and there was no longer a speck. A short-sighted one, at least put on his nose instead of glasses wheels from the commissar's chaise, and then he would not have recognized what it is. In front, it was completely German: narrow, constantly twirling and sniffing everything that came across, the muzzle ended, like our pigs, with a round snout, the legs were so thin that if the Jareskov's head had such, he would have broken them in the first goat. But at the back he was a real provincial solicitor in a uniform, because he had a tail hanging as sharp and long as the current uniform coat-tails; only by the goat's beard under the muzzle, by the small horns sticking out on his head, and that he was not whiter than a chimney sweep, one could guess that he was not a German and not a provincial solicitor, but simply a devil, who was left to wander around the white world last night and teach the sins of good people. Tomorrow, with the first bells for matins, he will run without looking back, tail between his legs, to his den.

Meanwhile, the devil crept slowly towards a month and was about to reach out to grab him, but suddenly pulled it back, as if burnt, sucked his fingers, threw his foot and ran from the other side, and again jumped back and jerked his hand away. However, despite all the failures, the cunning devil did not leave his mischief. Running up, he suddenly grabbed a month with both hands, grimacing and blowing, throwing it from one hand to the other, like a peasant who brought fire with his bare hands for his cradle; at last he hastily put it in his pocket and, as if he had never been in anything, ran on.

Gogol. Christmas Eve. Audiobook

In Dikanka, no one heard how the devil stole a month. True, the volost clerk, getting out of the shank on all fours, saw that he had been dancing in heaven for no reason at all, and assured the whole village with God; but the laity shook their heads and even laughed at him. But what was the reason for the devil to decide on such a lawless deed? And here's what: he knew that the rich Cossack Chub was invited by the clerk to the kutya, where they would be: head; a clerk's relative in a blue frock coat who came from the Bishop's singing clerk, who sang the lowest bass; Cossack Sverbyguz and some others; where, in addition to kutya, there will be varenukha, vodka distilled for saffron and a lot of everything edible. Meanwhile, his daughter, a beauty in the whole village, will stay at home, and a blacksmith, a strong man and a fellow will come to her daughter at any place, who was devilishly repulsive to the sermons of Father Kondrat. In his leisure time, the blacksmith was engaged in painting and was known as the best painter in the whole neighborhood. The centurion L ... co, who was still alive at that time, called him on purpose to Poltava to paint a board fence near his house. All the bowls from which the Dikan Cossacks sipped borscht were painted by a blacksmith. The blacksmith was a God-fearing man and often wrote images of saints: and now you can still find in T ... the church of his evangelist Luke. But the triumph of his art was one painting painted on the church wall in the right narthex, in which he depicted Saint Peter on the day of the Last Judgment, with keys in his hands, driving out the evil spirit from hell; the frightened devil rushed in all directions, anticipating his death, and the sinners imprisoned before beat and chased him with whips, logs and everything that came to hand. While the painter was working on this picture and writing it on a large wooden board, the devil did his best to interfere with him: he pushed it invisibly under the arm, lifted ash from the furnace in the smithy and sprinkled it on the picture; but, in spite of everything, the work was over, the board was brought into the church and embedded in the wall of the narthex, and from that time the devil vowed to take revenge on the blacksmith.

Only one night remained for him to stagger in the world; but that night, too, he tried to find something to vent his anger on the blacksmith. And for this he decided to steal a month, in the hope that old Chub was lazy and not easy to climb, but he was not so close to the clerk from the hut: the road went behind the village, past the mills, past the cemetery, skirting a ravine. Even during a month's night, varenukha and vodka infused with saffron could have lured Chub, but in such darkness it would hardly have been possible for anyone to pull him off the stove and call him out of the hut. And the blacksmith, who has long been at odds with him, in his presence would never dare to go to his daughter, despite his strength.

In this way, as soon as the devil hid his month in his pocket, suddenly it became so dark all over the world that not everyone would find their way to the shank, not only to the clerk. The witch, seeing herself suddenly in the dark, screamed. Then the devil, having rode up like a petty demon, grabbed her by the arm and began to whisper in his ear what is usually whispered to the entire female family. Wonderfully arranged in our world! Everything that lives in it, everything is trying to adopt and imitate one another. Before, it happened that in Mirgorod one judge and a mayor used to wander in winter in sheepskin coats covered with cloth, and all the petty officials simply wore naked; now both the assessor and the podkomoriy have otmala themselves new fur coats from Reshelylov's smushies with a cloth cover. The clerk and volost clerk for the third year took a blue Chinese woman for six hryvnia arshins. The sexton made himself nanke trousers and a vest from striped garus for the summer. In a word, everything climbs into people! When these people will not be vain! You can bet that many will find it surprising to see the devil set off for himself as well. The most annoying thing is that he probably imagines himself a handsome man, while the figure is ashamed to look. Mug, as Foma Grigorievich says, is an abomination an abomination, but he also builds love chickens! But in the sky and under the sky it became so dark that it was impossible to see anything what was happening further between them.

- So you, godfather, have not yet been with the clerk in the new hut? - Said the Cossack Chub, coming out of the door of his hut, to a lean, tall, in a short sheepskin coat, a peasant with an overgrown beard, showing that for more than two weeks a piece of braid had not touched her, with which peasants usually shave their beards for lack of a razor. - There will now be a good drink! Chub continued, grinning at his face. - As soon as we are not late.

At this, Chub straightened his belt, which tightly intercepted his sheepskin coat, pulled on his cap tighter, squeezed the whip in his hand — fear and a thunderstorm of annoying dogs; but, looking up, he stopped ...

- What the devil! Look! look, Panas! ..

- What? - said the godfather and raised his head up also.

- Like what? not a month!

- What an abyss! Indeed, there is no month.

- That is something that is not, - uttered Chub with some annoyance at the invariable indifference of his godfather. “You probably don’t need it.”

- What should I do!

- It was necessary, - continued Chub, wiping his mustache with his sleeve, - some devil, so that he did not have a chance, the dog, to drink a glass of vodka in the morning, to intervene! window: night is a miracle! Light, snow shines with a month. Everything was visible as in the daytime. I didn't have time to go out the door - and now, at least gouge out an eye!

Chub grumbled and scolded for a long time, and meanwhile at the same time he was thinking about what to decide on. He wanted to death to chat about all sorts of nonsense at the clerk's, where, without any doubt, the head, and the visiting bass, and the tar Mikita, who went every two weeks to Poltava for the auction and made such jokes that all the laymen took up their bellies laughing. Chub had already seen the varenukha mentally standing on the table. It was all tempting, really; but the darkness of the night reminded him of that laziness which was so dear to all the Cossacks. How good it would be to lie now, legs tucked under you, on the couch, quietly smoking the cradle and listening through the intoxicating slumber to the carols and songs of cheerful boys and girls crowding in heaps under the windows. Without any doubt, he would have decided on the latter if he had been alone, but now both of them are not so bored and scared to walk in the dark night, and they did not want to appear lazy or cowardly in front of others. After finishing the swearing, he turned to his godfather again:

- So no, godfather, months?

- Wonderful, really! Let me smell the tobacco. You, godfather, have a glorious tobacco! Where do you get it?

- What the hell, glorious! - answered the godfather, covering the birch tavlinka, punctured with patterns. - The old chicken doesn't sneeze!

“I remember,” Chub continued in the same way, “the late shinkar Zozulya once brought me tobacco from Nizhyn. Oh, there was tobacco! good tobacco was! So what, godfather, how can we be? it's dark outside.

- So, perhaps, we'll stay at home, - said the godfather, grabbing the door handle.

If the godfather had not said this, then Chub would surely have decided to stay, but now it was as if something was jerking him to go against it.

- No, godfather, let's go! no, you have to go!

Having said this, he was already annoyed with himself that he had said. It was very unpleasant for him to trudge on such a night; but he was comforted by the fact that he himself deliberately wanted it and did not do as he was advised.

Kum, not expressing the slightest movement of annoyance on his face, like a man who decisively does not care whether to stay at home or trudge out of the house, looked around, scratched his shoulders with a batog stick, and the two godfathers set off on the road.

Now let's see what the beautiful daughter is doing, left alone. Oksana is not yet seventeen years old, as in almost all the world, and on the other side of Dikanka, and on this side of Dikanka, there were only speeches about her. The group proclaimed in a herd that the best girl has never been and will never be in the village. Oksana knew and heard everything that was said about her, and was capricious as a beauty. If she had not walked in a block and a spare tire, but in some kind of hood, she would have dispersed all her girls. The couple chased her in droves, but having lost patience, little by little they left and turned to others, not so spoiled. Only the blacksmith was stubborn and did not abandon his red tape, despite the fact that he was treated no better than others.

After her father left, she dressed up for a long time and cursed herself in front of a small tin-framed mirror and could not stop looking at herself. “What do people want to glorify as if I'm good? She said, as if absentmindedly, just to chat about something with herself. "People lie, I'm not good at all." But a face flashed in the mirror, fresh, alive in childhood youth, with shining black eyes and an inexpressibly pleasant smile that burned through the soul, suddenly proved the opposite. “Are my black eyebrows and eyes,” the beauty continued, not releasing a mirror, “so good that there is no one equal to them in the world? What's so good about that upturned nose? and in the cheeks? and in the lips? How good are my black braids? Wow! they can be scared in the evening: they are like long snakes, twisted and coiled around my head. I see now that I am not good at all! - and, pushing the mirror a little further away from herself, cried out: - No, I'm good! Oh, how good! Miracle! What joy I will bring to the one who will be my wife! How my husband will admire me! He will not remember himself. He will kiss me to death. "

- Wonderful girl! - whispered the blacksmith who entered quietly, - and she has little boasting! He stands for an hour, looking in the mirror, and does not look enough, and still praises himself aloud!

“Yes, lads, am I a match for you? you look at me, ”the pretty coquette went on,“ how smoothly I am; my shirt is sewn with red silk. And what ribbons on the head! You will not see a century richer than a galloon! All this was bought for me by my father so that the best fellow in the world would marry me! " And, smiling, she turned in the other direction and saw the blacksmith ...

She screamed and stood sternly in front of him.

The blacksmith lowered his hands.

It is difficult to tell what the swarthy face of the wonderful girl expressed: both the severity in it was visible, and through the severity there was some kind of mockery of the embarrassed blacksmith, and a barely noticeable color of annoyance was thinly spreading over her face; and all this was so mixed up and it was so unimaginably good that kissing her a million times - that was all that could be done then the best.

- Why did you come here? - so Oksana began to speak. - Do you want to be kicked out the door with a shovel? You are all masters of driving up to us. You will instantly sniff out when the fathers are not at home. Oh, I know you! Is my chest ready?

- It will be ready, my dear, after the holiday it will be ready. If you knew how much you fiddled around him: two nights did not leave the smithy; but not a single priest will have such a chest, he put iron on the chain that he didn’t put on the centurion’s tarataic when he went to work in Poltava. And how will it be scheduled! Although the whole neighborhood go out with your little white legs, you will not find such a thing! Scattered across the field will be red and blue flowers... It will burn like heat. Don't be angry with me! Let me at least talk, at least look at you!

- Who forbids you, speak and look!

Then she sat down on the bench and looked again in the mirror and began to straighten her braids on her head. She looked at her neck, at her new shirt, embroidered with silk, and a subtle feeling of self-satisfaction was expressed on her lips, on fresh cheeks and gleamed in her eyes.

- Let me sit next to you! - said the blacksmith.

- Sit down, - said Oksana, keeping the same feeling in her lips and in her satisfied eyes.

- Wonderful, beloved Oksana, let me kiss you! - said the encouraged blacksmith and pulled her to him, intending to grab a kiss; but Oksana turned her cheeks, which were already at an imperceptible distance from the blacksmith's lips, and pushed him away.

- What more do you want? Whenever he needs honey, he needs a spoon! Go away, your hands are tougher than iron. And you yourself smell like smoke. I think I got soot all over me.

Then she brought up the mirror and again began to pretend in front of him.

“She doesn't love me,” the blacksmith thought to himself, hanging his head. - All toys for her; but I stand in front of her like a fool, and I keep my eyes on her. And everything would stand before her, and the century would not take her eyes off her! Wonderful girl! what would I not give to find out what is in her heart, whom she loves! But no, she has no need for anyone. She admires herself; torments me, poor man; but I do not see the light behind the sadness; and I love her so much as no other person in the world has loved and will never love. "

- Is it true that your mother is a witch? - said Oksana and laughed; and the blacksmith felt that everything inside him laughed. This laughter seemed to resonate at once in his heart and in his quietly quivering veins, and with all this annoyance sank into his soul that he was not in the power to kiss a face so pleasantly laughed.

- What do I care about my mother? You are my mother and father, and everything that is dear in the world. If the king called me and said: “Blacksmith Vakula, ask me for everything that is best in my kingdom, I will give everything to you. I will order you to make a gold smithy, and you will forge with silver hammers. " “I don’t want,” I would say to the tsar, “neither precious stones, nor a gold smithy, nor your whole kingdom: give me my Oksana better!”

- See what you are! Only my father himself did not fail. You will see when he doesn’t marry your mother, ”Oksana said with a sly grin. - But the girls don't come ... What would that mean? It's high time to carol. I get bored.

- God be with them, my beauty!

- No matter how it is! the boys will probably come with them. This is where the balls will go. I imagine what they will say funny stories!

- So you have fun with them?

- Yes, it's more fun than with you. A! someone knocked; right, the girls with the boys.

“What should I wait any longer? The blacksmith said to himself. - She makes fun of me. I am as dear to her as a rusted horseshoe. But if so, it will not get, by at least, another will laugh at me. Let me just notice who she likes more than mine; I will wean ... "

A knock on the door and a voice that sounded sharply in the cold: "Open it!" - interrupted his reflections.

- Wait, I'll open it myself, - said the blacksmith and went out into the entrance, intending to break off the sides of the first person who came across from his annoyance.

The frost increased, and it became so cold at the top that the devil jumped from one hoof to another and blew into his fist, wanting to somehow warm up his frozen hands. It is not surprising, however, that someone who pushed from morning to morning in hell, where, as you know, is not as cold as ours in winter, and where, putting on a cap and standing in front of the he is a sinner with the pleasure with which a woman usually roasts sausage for Christmas.

The witch herself felt that it was cold, despite the fact that she was warmly dressed; and therefore, raising her hands up, put her foot down and, bringing herself to such a position as a man flying on skates, without moving a single joint, descended through the air, as if along an icy sloping mountain, and straight into a pipe.

The devil followed her in the same order. But since this animal is more agile than any dandy in stockings, it is not surprising that at the very entrance to the chimney he ran over the neck of his mistress, and both found themselves in a spacious stove between the pots.

The traveler quietly pushed the shutter, to see if her son had called her Vakula to the guests' hut, but when she saw that there was no one there, turning off only the bags that lay in the middle of the hut, she climbed out of the stove, threw off the warm casing, recovered, and no one could find out that she rode a broomstick a minute ago.

The mother of the blacksmith Vakula was no more than forty years old. She was neither good nor ugly. It is difficult to be good in such years. However, she was so good at attracting the most staid Cossacks to herself (which, by the way, didn’t interfere, by the way, notice that there was little need for beauty) that both the head and the clerk Osip Nikiforovich visited her (of course, if the clerk was not at home), and the Cossack Korniy Chub, and the Cossack Kasyan Sverbyguz. And, to her credit, she knew how to skillfully deal with them. None of them even thought that he had a rival. Was it a devout peasant, or a nobleman, as the Cossacks call themselves, dressed in a kobenyak with a vidlogo, on Sunday to church or, if the weather is bad, in a shinok, how not to go to Solokha, not to eat fatty dumplings with sour cream and not to chat in a warm a hut with a talkative and obsequious mistress. And the nobleman deliberately gave a big hook for this before he reached the shank, and called it - to go along the road. And whether Solokha used to go to church on a holiday, putting on a bright plakht with a Chinese spare wheel, and over her blue skirt, on which a golden mustache was sewn at the back, and stand right next to the right wing, then the clerk was already surely coughing and squinting involuntarily into that side of the eye; He stroked his mustache, wrapped the donkey around his ear and said to his neighbor who was standing near: “Eh, good woman! damn woman! "

Solokha bowed to everyone, and everyone thought that she bowed to him alone. But a hunter to interfere in other people's affairs would immediately notice that Solokha was the most friendly of all with the Cossack Chub. Chub was a widow; eight stacks of bread always stood in front of his hut. Each time two pairs of hefty oxen poked their heads out of the wicker barn into the street and bellowed when they envied a walking godmother - a cow, or an uncle - a fat bull. A bearded goat climbed to the very roof and rattled from there in a harsh voice, like a mayor, teasing the turkeys who were performing in the courtyard and turning his back when he envied his enemies, the boys, who mocked his beard. Chub's chests contained a lot of linen, zhupans and old kuntushi with gold braids: his late wife was a dandy. In the garden, besides poppy seeds, cabbage, sunflowers, two fields of tobacco were sown every year. Solokha did not find it superfluous to add all this to her farm, thinking in advance about what order it would take when it passed into her hands, and redoubled her favor to the old Chub. And so that somehow her son Vakula did not drive up to his daughter and did not have time to tidy everything up for himself, and then probably would not let her get in the way of anything, she resorted to the usual means of all forty-year-old gossips: to quarrel Chuba with the blacksmith as often as possible. Perhaps these very cunning and sharpness of her were to blame for the fact that here and there the old women began to talk, especially when they drank too much at a merry gathering that Solokha was like a witch; that the boy Kizyakolupenko saw behind her a tail no larger than a woman's spindle; that even the Thursday before last she had crossed the road like a black cat; that a pig once ran to the priest, cried like a rooster, put on the cap of Father Kondrat and ran back.

It happened that when the old women were talking about this, some cow shepherd Tymish Korostiyy came. He did not fail to tell how in the summer, in front of Petrovka herself, when he went to bed in the barn, having piled straw under his head, he saw with his own eyes that the witch, with a loose scythe, in one shirt, began to milk the cows, but he could not move, so was bewitched; After milking the cows, she came to him and anointed his lips with something so disgusting that he spat after that all day. But all this is something doubtful, because only one assessor of Sorochin can see the witch. And that is why all the eminent Cossacks waved their hands when they heard such speeches. "Suchi women are bullshit!" - there was their usual answer.

Crawling out of the stove and recovering, Solokha, like a kind mistress, began to clean up and put everything in its place, but did not touch the sacks: "Vakula brought this, let him carry it out himself!" The devil meanwhile, when he was still flying into the chimney, somehow accidentally turning around, he saw Chub in hand with his godfather, already far from the hut. In an instant he flew out of the stove, ran across their path and began to tear piles of frozen snow from all sides. A blizzard arose. The air went white. The snow tossed back and forth in a net and threatened to cover the eyes, mouth and ears of pedestrians. And the devil flew back into the chimney, firmly convinced that Chub would come back with his godfather, catch the blacksmith and mark him off so that for a long time he would not be able to pick up a brush and paint offensive caricatures.

In fact, as soon as a snowstorm had risen and the wind began to cut right in the eyes, as Chub had already expressed remorse and, pushing deeper on the droplet's head, treated himself, the devil and godfather, with swearing. However, this annoyance was feigned. Chub was very glad of the rising snowstorm. Until the sexton was still eight times Moreover the distance they have traveled. The travelers turned back. The wind was blowing in the back of the head; but through the pouring snow nothing could be seen.

- Stop, godfather! We seem to be going in the wrong direction, "Chub said, moving away a little," I don't see a single hut. Oh, what a blizzard! Turn around, godfather, a little to the side, won't you find a way; and in the meantime I will look here. The evil spirits will pull away to hang around in such a blizzard! Remember to scream when you find your way. Eck, what a pile of snow has satan in the eyes!

The road, however, was not visible. Kum, stepping aside, wandered back and forth in long boots, and finally came across a shinok. This find made him so happy that he forgot everything and, shaking off the snow, entered the passage, not at all worrying about the godfather who remained on the street. It seemed to Chub that he had found the way; stopping, he began to shout at the top of his lungs, but seeing that the godfather was not, he decided to go himself.

After walking a little, he saw his hut. Drifts of snow lay beside her and on the roof. Slapping his hands frozen in the cold, he began to knock on the door and shout commanding his daughter to unlock it.

- What do you want here? The blacksmith who came out shouted sternly.

Chub, recognizing the voice of the blacksmith, stepped back a little. “Eh, no, this is not my house,” he said to himself, “the blacksmith will not wander into my house. Again, if you look closely, then it is not Kuznetsova. Whose hut would it be? Here on! did not recognize! this is the lame Levchenko, who recently married his young wife. His only hut is similar to mine. It seemed to me and at first a little strange that I came home so soon. However, Levchenko is now sitting with the clerk, I know that; Why a blacksmith? .. Hey! he goes to his young wife. Here's how! good! .. now I understand everything. "

- Who are you and why are you hanging around under the doors? - said the blacksmith sterner than before, and stepping closer.

"No, I will not tell him who I am," thought Chub, "what a good thing, he will still pin it down, you damned bastard!" - and, changing his voice, answered:

- It's me, good man! came to your amusement to poke a little under the windows.

- Go to hell with your carols! Vakula shouted angrily. - What are you standing there for? Do you hear, get out now!

Chub himself already had this prudent intention; but he felt annoyed that he was forced to obey the orders of the blacksmith. It seemed that some evil spirit was pushing him by the arm and forcing him to say something contrary to it.

- Why did you really scream like that? - he said in the same voice, - I want to carol, and it's full!

- Hey! Yes, you won't get away from words! .. - Following these words, Chub felt a painful blow to his shoulder.

- Yes, that's you, as I see, you are already starting to fight! - he said, stepping back a little.

- Come on, let's go! - shouted the blacksmith, rewarding Chub with another impetus.

- Come on, let's go! - shouted the blacksmith and slammed the door.

- Look how brave you are! - said Chub, left alone in the street. - Try to come up! see what! here is a big swell! Do you think I won't find a court for you? No, my dear, I'll go and go straight to the commissioner. You will know me! I will not see that you are a blacksmith and a painter. However, look at the back and shoulders: I think there are blue spots. Must have hit you painfully, son of the enemy! It’s a pity that it’s cold and you don’t want to throw off the casing! Wait, you demonic blacksmith, so that the devil beat both you and your smithy, you will dance with me! You damn shibenik! However, now he is not at home. Solokha, I think, is sitting alone. Um ... it's not far from here; would go! The time is now such that no one will catch us. Maybe even that, it will be possible ... See, how painfully the damned blacksmith beat!

Here Chub, having scratched his back, went the other way. The pleasantness that awaited him ahead of him during his meeting with Solokha diminished the pain a little and made insensitive even the very frost that crackled along all the streets, not drowned out by the blizzard whistle. From time to time on his face, whose beard and mustache the blizzard had lathered up with snow more dexterously than any barber, tyrannically snatching his victim by the nose, a semi-sweet mine appeared. But if, however, the snow had not baptized back and forth before our eyes, then for a long time it would have been possible to see Chub stopping, scratching his back, saying: "The damned blacksmith beat painfully!" - and set off again.

At a time when an agile dandy with a tail and a goat beard flew out of the pipe and then again into the pipe, which hung in a sling at his side of the ladder, in which he hid the stolen month, somehow accidentally caught in the stove, and the month disappeared, using In this case, it flew out through the pipe of Solokhina's khata and smoothly ascended through the sky. Everything lit up. The snowstorm was gone. The snow lit up in a wide silver field and sprinkled with crystal stars. The frost seemed to have warmed up. Crowds of boys and girls showed up with sacks. The songs rang out, and there were no caroling crowds under the rare hut.

The month shines wonderfully! It is difficult to tell how good it is to knock together on such a night between a bunch of laughing and singing girls and between boys, ready for all the jokes and inventions that a cheerfully laughing night can only suggest. It's warm under the tight casing; from the frost the cheeks burn even more vividly; and on pranks, the evil one pushes from behind.

Heaps of girls with sacks broke into Chub's hut, surrounded Oksana. Shouts, laughter, stories deafened the blacksmith. Everyone vied with each other in a hurry to tell the beauty something new, unloaded the sacks and boasted of pastries, sausages, dumplings, which they had already managed to collect for their carols. Oksana, it seemed, was in perfect pleasure and joy, chatting now with the one, now with the other and laughing incessantly. With some vexation and envy, the blacksmith looked at such gaiety, and this time he cursed the carols, although he himself was crazy about them.

- Eh, Odarka! - said the cheerful beauty, turning to one of the girls, - you have new shanks! Oh, how good! and with gold! It's good for you, Odarka, you have a person who buys everything for you; and I have no one to get such glorious trolleys.

- Do not grieve, my beloved Oksana! - picked up the blacksmith, - I will get you such shanks, which a rare lady wears.

- You? - said, quickly and haughtily looking at him, Oksana. - I'll see where you can get the slippers that I could put on my leg. Can't you bring the ones worn by the queen?

- You see what you wanted! Shouted the maiden crowd with a laugh.

“Yes,” the beautiful woman continued proudly, “be all of you witnesses: if the blacksmith Vakula brings the very shanks worn by the queen, then here is my word that I will marry him that very hour.

The girls took the capricious beauty with them.

- Laugh, laugh! - said the blacksmith, going out after them. - I'm laughing at myself! I think, and I cannot think of where my mind has gone. She doesn't love me - well, God bless her! as if only Oksana was alone in the whole world. Thank God, there are many good girls in the countryside without her. What is Oksana? she will never have a good mistress; she is only a craftswoman to dress up. No, complete, it's time to stop fooling around.

But at the very time when the blacksmith was preparing to be decisive, some evil spirit carried before him a laughing image of Oksana, who said mockingly: "Get, blacksmith, the czarina's cribs, I will marry you!" Everything in him was worried, and he thought only of Oksana alone.

Crowds of carols, boys especially, girls especially, hurried from one street to another. But the blacksmith walked and saw nothing and did not participate in those merriments that he once loved more than anyone else.

The devil, meanwhile, was seriously softening at Solokha's: he kissed her hand with such antics as an assessor at a priest’s, grabbed his heart, groaned and said bluntly that if she did not agree to satisfy his passions and, as usual, reward, then he was ready to everything: he will throw himself into the water, and send his soul straight into the hell. Solokha was not so cruel, moreover, the devil, as you know, acted at the same time with her. She did love to see the crowd dragging behind her and was rarely without company; this evening, however, I thought to spend it alone, because all the eminent inhabitants of the village were invited to the clerk for kutya. But everything went differently: the devil had just presented his demand, when suddenly he heard the voice of a hefty head. Solokha ran to open the door, and the agile devil climbed into the lying sack.

Head, shaking off the snow from his drops and drinking a glass of vodka from Solokha's hands, said that he did not go to the clerk, because a blizzard had arisen; and when he saw the light in her hut, he turned to her, intending to spend the evening with her.

Before the head had time to say this, a knock was heard at the door and the voice of the clerk.

- Hide me somewhere, - the head whispered. “I don’t want to meet with the clerk now.

Solokha thought for a long time where to hide such a dense guest; finally chose the most big bag with coal; charcoal was poured into a tub, and a stout head, with a mustache, with a head and droplets, climbed into the sack.

The clerk entered, grunting and rubbing his hands, and said that he had no one and that he was heartily happy about this occasion. take a walk a little at her and was not afraid of a blizzard, Then he came closer to her, coughed, grinned, touched her naked full of hands and said with an air of guile and complacency:

- And what is it with you, magnificent Solokha? - And having said this, he jumped back a little.

- Like what? Ruka, Osip Nikiforovich! - answered Solokha.

- Hm! hand! heh! heh! heh! - said the clerk heartily pleased with his beginning and walked around the room.

- And what is this with you, dear Solokha? - he said with the same look, approaching her again and grabbing her neck lightly with his hand, and jumped back in the same order.

- As if you do not see, Osip Nikiforovich! - answered Solokha. - Neck, but on the neck it is monisto.

- Hm! monisto on the neck! heh! heh! heh! - And the clerk walked around the room again, rubbing his hands.

- And what is this with you, incomparable Solokha? .. - It is not known what the clerk would touch with his long fingers, when suddenly there was a knock on the door and the voice of the Cossack Chub.

- Oh, my God, an outsider! - the clerk shouted in fright. - What now if someone of my rank is caught? .. Will reach Kondrat's father! ..

But the clerk's fears were of a different kind: more than that, he was afraid that half of him would not recognize him, which with her already terrible hand made the narrowest of his thick braid.

“For God's sake, virtuous Solokha,” he said, trembling all over. - Your kindness, as the scripture of Luke says chapter trine ... trine ... knock, by God, knock! Oh, hide me somewhere!

Solokha poured coal into a tub from another sack, and the clerk, who was not too bulky, climbed into it and sat down at the very bottom, so that over it could be poured from another half sack of coal.

- Hello, Solokha! - said, entering the hut, Chub. - You, perhaps, did not expect me, huh? really didn’t expect? maybe I interfered? .. - Chub continued, showing on his face a cheerful and significant face, which made it known in advance that his clumsy head was working and was preparing to let go of some sharp and intricate joke. - Maybe you were having fun with someone here? .. maybe you hid someone already, huh? - And, delighted with this remark, Chub laughed, inwardly triumphant that he alone was enjoying Solokha's favor. - Well, Solokha, now give me a drink of vodka. I think my throat is frozen from the damn frost. God sent such a night before Christmas! How she grabbed, do you hear, Solokha, how she grabbed ... ek my hands were ossified: I won't open the casing! how the blizzard grabbed ...

“Someone is knocking,” said Chub, who had stopped.

- Open it! - shouted stronger than before.

- It's a blacksmith! - said Chub, clutching at the droplets. - Do you hear, Solokha, take me where you want; I would never want to appear to this damned bastard, so that he would run up to him, the devil's son, under both eyes on a bubble in a shock of size!

Solokha, frightened herself, rushed about like a madman and, having forgotten, gave a sign to Chub to climb into the very bag in which the clerk was already sitting. The poor clerk did not even dare to cough and groan in pain when a heavy peasant sat down almost on his head and placed his boots, frozen in the frost, on both sides of his temples.

The blacksmith entered without a word, without taking off his hat, and almost fell on the bench. It is noticeable that he was quite out of sorts.

At the very time when Solokha closed the door behind him, someone knocked again. It was the Cossack Sverbyguz. It was no longer possible to hide this in a bag, because even such a bag could not be found. He was shorter in body than the head itself and taller than Chubov's godfather. And so Solokha took him out into the garden to hear from him everything that he wanted to tell her.

The blacksmith absentmindedly looked around the corners of his hut, listening at times to the far-off songs of the carols; Finally he fixed his eyes on the bags: “Why are these bags lying here? it would be high time to get them out of here. Through this stupid love, I became completely stupid. Tomorrow is a holiday, and there is still all sorts of rubbish in the hut. Take them to the forge! "

Then the blacksmith sat down at the huge sacks, tied them up tighter and prepared to load them on his shoulders. But it was noticeable that his thoughts were walking, God knows where, otherwise he would have heard Chub hissed when the hair on his head was fastened by the rope that had tied the bag, and the sturdy head began to hiccup quite clearly.

- Doesn't this worthless Oksana get out of my mind? - said the blacksmith, - I don't want to think about her; but everything is thought, and, as if on purpose, only about her. Why is it so that the thought against its will climbs into the head? What the hell, the bags seem to be heavier than before! There must be something else besides coal. I'm a fool! and forgot that now everything seems harder to me. Before, it used to be, I could bend and unbend a copper penny and a horse shoe in one hand; but now I won't lift the sacks of coal. Soon I will fall from the wind. No, - he cried, after a pause and being encouraged, - what a woman I am! I will not let anyone laugh at me! At least ten of these bags, I will lift everything. - And he cheerfully heaped sacks on his shoulders, which two hefty people would not have carried. “Take this one too,” he continued, picking up the little one, at the bottom of which the devil lay curled up. - Here, it seems, I put my instrument down. - Having said this, he left the hut, whistling a song:

Noisier and noisier songs and shouts were heard in the streets. The crowds of the crowded people were increased by those who still came from the neighboring villages. The couples were naughty and furious. Often a funny song was heard between the carols, which one of the young Cossacks managed to put together. Then suddenly one of the crowd, instead of carols, let go of the generosity and roared at the top of his lungs:

Shchedrik, vedrik!
Give a dumpling,
Breast of porridge,
Kilce kovbaski!

Laughter rewarded the entertainer. The small windows were raised, and the lean hand of the old woman, who alone remained in the huts with their dignified fathers, protruded from the window with a sausage in their hands or a piece of cake. Couples and girls vied with sacks and caught their prey. In one place the boys, coming from all sides, surrounded a crowd of girls: noise, shouting, one threw a lump of snow, the other pulled out a sack with all sorts of things. In another place, the girls caught the boy, substituted his leg, and he flew headlong with the sack to the ground. It seemed that they were ready to have fun all night long. And the night, as if on purpose, was so luxuriously glowing! and the light of the moon seemed even whiter from the glitter of the snow.

The blacksmith stopped with his sacks. He fancied Oksana's voice and thin laughter in the crowd of girls. All the veins in him quivered; Throwing the sacks on the ground so that the clerk who was at the bottom gasped with a bruise and his head hiccuped at the top of his throat, he walked with a small sack on his shoulders along with a crowd of boys following the maiden crowd, between which he heard Oksana's voice.

“So, this is it! stands like a queen and shines with black eyes! A prominent lad tells her something; right, funny, because she laughs. But she always laughs. " As if involuntarily, without understanding how, the blacksmith wiped himself through the crowd and stood beside her.

- Ah, Vakula, you are here! Hello! - said the beauty with the same grin that almost drove Vakula crazy. - Well, did you do a lot? Eh, what a small bag! Have you got the skullcaps worn by the queen? get the skullcaps, I'll get married! And, laughing, she ran away with the crowd.

The blacksmith stood rooted to the spot in one place. "No I can not; no more strength ... - he said at last. “But my God, why is she so damn good? Her gaze, and her speech, and everything, well, it burns like this, it burns like that ... No, you can't overpower yourself! It's time to put an end to everything: lose your soul, I will go and drown myself in the forehead, and remember what your name was! "

Then he went forward with a decisive step, caught up with the crowd, caught up with Oksana and said in a firm voice:

- Goodbye, Oksana! Look for yourself what kind of groom you want, fool whoever you want; but you won't see me anymore in this world.

The beauty seemed surprised, she wanted to say something, but the blacksmith waved his hand and ran away.

- Where, Vakula? - shouted the boys, seeing the running blacksmith.

- Goodbye, brothers! The blacksmith shouted back. - God willing, I'll see you in the next world; and on this we no longer walk together. Goodbye, do not remember dashingly! Tell Father Kondrat to create a memorial service for my sinful soul. Candles for the icons of the miracle worker and the mother of God, he is sinful, he did not waste his time for worldly affairs. All the good that can be found in my hideout, to the church! Farewell!

Having said this, the blacksmith began to run again with the sack on his back.

- He's damaged! - said the boys.

- Lost soul! - devoutly muttered an old woman passing by. - Go tell how the blacksmith hanged himself!

Meanwhile, Vakula, having run several streets, stopped to transfer his spirit. “Where am I really going? - he thought, - as if everything had already disappeared. I’ll try another remedy: I’ll go to the Cossack Potato Patsyuk. They say he knows all the devils and will do whatever he wants. I'll go, because my soul still has to disappear! "

At the same time, the devil, who had been lying for a long time without any movement, jumped in the sack for joy; but the blacksmith, thinking that he had somehow caught the sack with his hand and made this movement himself, hit the sack with a large fist and, shaking it on his shoulders, went to the Pot-bellied Patsyuk.

This Puzaty Patsyuk was definitely a Cossack at one time; but they kicked him out or he himself fled from Zaporozhye, nobody knew that. For a long time already, ten, or perhaps fifteen years, as he lived in Dikanka. At first he lived like a real Zaporozhets: he did not work, slept for three quarters of the day, ate for six mowers and drank almost a whole bucket at a time; however, there was where to fit, because Patsyuk, despite his small stature, was quite weighty in width. Moreover, the trousers that he wore were so wide that, no matter how big he took a step, his legs were completely invisible, and it seemed that the distillery was moving along the street. Perhaps this is the very reason to call him Pot-bellied. Less than a few days after his arrival in the village, everyone had already learned that he was a medicine man. Was anyone sick with anything, immediately called Patsyuk; and Patsyuk only had to whisper a few words, and the ailment seemed to be removed by hand. Whether it happened that a hungry noble choked on a fish bone, Patsyuk knew how to punch him in the back so skillfully that the bone went where it should go without causing any harm to the noble's throat. V recent times he was rarely seen anywhere. The reason for this was, perhaps, laziness, or perhaps the fact that getting through the door became more difficult for him every year. Then the laity had to go to him themselves, if they needed him.

The blacksmith, not without timidity, opened the door and saw Patsyuk, sitting on the floor in a Turkish fashion, in front of a small tub, on which stood a bowl of dumplings. This bowl stood, as if on purpose, on a level with his mouth. Without moving a single finger, he bent his head slightly to the bowl and slurped the slurry, seizing the dumplings with his teeth from time to time.

"No, this one," thought Vakula to himself, "is even lazier than Chub: he, at least, eats with a spoon, but this one doesn't even want to raise his hands!"

Patsyuk, no doubt, was tightly occupied with dumplings, because, it seemed, he did not notice at all the arrival of the blacksmith, who, barely stepping on the threshold, made a humble bow to him.

- I came to your grace, Patsyuk! Vakula said, bowing again.

Fat Patsyuk raised his head and began to sip dumplings again.

- You, they say, do not be said in anger ... - said, gathering courage, the blacksmith, - I am not talking about this in order to inflict any offense on you, - you have a little akin to the devil.

Having said these words, Vakula was frightened, thinking that he had still expressed himself bluntly and had softened the strong words a little, and, expecting that Patsyuk, grabbing the tub along with the bowl, would send it straight to his head, he pulled back a little and covered himself with his sleeve so that the hot liquid from the dumplings did not splash his face.

But Patsyuk looked and began to sip dumplings again. The emboldened blacksmith decided to continue:

- I came to you, Patsyuk, God forbid you everything, every good thing in contentment, bread in proportion! - The blacksmith sometimes knew how to screw in a fashionable word; in that he became familiar when he was still in Poltava, when he painted a board fence for the centurion. - I have to disappear, a sinner! nothing helps in the world! What will happen, you have to ask for help from the devil himself. Well, Patsyuk? - said the blacksmith, seeing his invariable silence, - what should I do?

- When you need the devil, then go to the devil! - answered Patsyuk, without raising his eyes and continuing to remove the dumplings.

“That’s why I came to you,” the blacksmith answered, bowing, “except you, I think no one in the world knows the way to him.

Patsyuk not a word and finished the rest of the dumplings.

- Do mercy, good man, do not refuse! - the blacksmith was advancing, - whether pork, sausages, buckwheat flour, well, linen, millet or other other things, in case of need ... as is usual among good people ... we will not be stingy. Tell me at least how, roughly speaking, to get on the road to him?

“He doesn't need to go far, who has the devil behind him,” Patsyuk said indifferently, without changing his position.

Vakula stared at him, as if an explanation of those words had been written on his forehead. "What he says?" - Mina asked him silently; and his half-open mouth was preparing to swallow the first word like a dumpling. But Patsyuk was silent.

Then Vakula noticed that there were no dumplings or tubs in front of him; but instead there were two wooden bowls on the floor: one filled with dumplings, the other with sour cream. His thoughts and eyes involuntarily rushed to these dishes. “Let's see,” he said to himself, “how Patsyuk will eat dumplings. He probably won't bend over in order to sip like dumplings, and he can't: you first need to dip the dumplings in sour cream. "

As soon as he had time to think this, Patsyuk opened his mouth, looked at the dumplings and opened his mouth even more. At this time, the dumpling spilled out of the bowl, slapped into the sour cream, turned over to the other side, jumped up and just got into his mouth. Patsyuk ate it and opened his mouth again, and the dumpling set off again in the same manner. He only took on the trouble of chewing and swallowing.

"See what a miracle!" - thought the blacksmith, his mouth gaping in surprise, and at the same time he noticed that the dumpling was climbing into his mouth and had already smeared his lips with sour cream. Pushing aside the dumpling and wiping his lips, the blacksmith began to reflect on what miracles happen in the world and to what wisdom the evil spirits bring a person, noticing, moreover, that only Patsyuk can help him. “I will bow to him again, let him interpret it well ... But what the hell! because today hungry kutia, and he eats dumplings, dumplings! What a fool I really am, standing here and typing in sin! Back!" And the pious blacksmith rushed out of the hut.

However, the devil, who was sitting in the sack and already rejoicing in advance, could not bear to have such a glorious prey go out of his hands. As soon as the blacksmith lowered the sack, he jumped out of it and sat astride his neck.

Frost chipped on the blacksmith's skin; frightened and pale, he did not know what to do; already wanted to cross himself ... But the devil, tilting his dog's stigma to his right ear, said:

- This is me - your friend, I will do everything for a comrade and friend! I'll give you as much money as you want, ”he squeaked in his left ear. “Oksana will be ours today,” he whispered, turning his face back into his right ear.

The blacksmith stood thinking.

“If you please,” he said at last, “for such a price, I’m ready to be yours!”

The devil threw up his hands and began to gallop for joy on the blacksmith's neck. “Now the blacksmith is caught! - he thought to himself, - now I will take out on you, my dear, all your fantasies and fables, cocked into devils! What will my comrades say now when they learn that the most devout man in the whole village is in my hands? " Here the devil laughed with joy, remembering how the whole tailed tribe would tease in hell, how the lame devil, who was considered the first for inventions among them, would rage.

- Well, Vakula! - the devil squeaked, still not getting off his neck, as if fearing that he would not run away, - you know that nothing is done without a contract.

- I'm ready! - said the blacksmith. - You, I heard, sign in blood; wait, I'll get a nail in my pocket! - Then he put his hand back - and grab the devil's tail.

- See, what a joker! - shouted, laughing, the devil. - Well, that's enough, enough to be naughty!

- Wait, darling! - shouted the blacksmith, - and this is how it seems to you? - At this word, he created the cross, and the devil became as quiet as a lamb. - Wait, - he said, pulling him by the tail to the ground, - you will know me to teach good people and honest Christians to sin! - Here the blacksmith, without letting go of his tail, jumped on top of him and raised his hand for the sign of the cross.

- Have mercy, Vakula! - the devil moaned plaintively, - everything that is necessary for you, I will do everything, only let your soul go to repentance: do not put a terrible cross on me!

- Where? - said the sad devil.

- To Petemburg, right to the queen!

And the blacksmith was stunned with fear, feeling himself rising into the air.

Oksana stood for a long time, thinking about the strange speeches of the blacksmith. Already inside her, something said that she had done too cruel to him. What if he really does something terrible? “What good! Perhaps, out of grief, he will decide to fall in love with another and, out of vexation, will call her the first beauty in the village? But no, he loves me. I'm so good! He would never change me; he is playing naughty, pretending. In less than ten minutes he will probably come to look at me. I am really tough. You need to give him, as if reluctantly, kiss yourself. He will be delighted! " And the windy beauty was already joking with her friends.

- Wait, - said one of them, - the blacksmith forgot his bags; look what terrible bags! He didn’t do it in our way: I think they threw a whole quarter of a ram here; but sausages and breads, it is true, do not count! Luxury! whole holidays can be overeat.

- These are blacksmith sacks? - picked up Oksana. “Let's take them to my hut as soon as possible and take a good look at what he put here.

All with a laugh approved such a proposal.

- But we will not raise them! The whole crowd suddenly shouted, trying to move the bags.

- Wait, - said Oksana, - let's run after the sleds and take them on the sleds!

And the crowd ran after the sled.

The prisoners got very tired of sitting in sacks, despite the fact that the clerk poked a decent hole for himself with his finger. If there were no people yet, then perhaps he would have found a means to get out; but to get out of the bag in front of everyone, to show himself to be ridiculous ... this held him back, and he decided to wait, only slightly grunting under Chub's impolite boots. Chub himself no less wished for freedom, feeling that under him lay something on which it was awkward to sit fear. But as soon as he heard the decision of his daughter, he calmed down and did not want to get out, reasoning that one had to go to his hut at least a hundred steps, and maybe another. Crawling out, you need to recover, fasten the casing, tie up the belt - how much work! and the droplets remained with Solokha. Better to let the girls take you on a sled. But it didn’t happen at all as Chub had expected. At the time when the girls ran after the sled, the thin godfather came out of the shank upset and out of sorts. The shinkarka in no way dared to believe him in debt; he wanted to wait, maybe some pious nobleman would come and treat him; but, as if on purpose, all the nobles stayed at home and, like honest Christians, ate kutya in the midst of their household. Reflecting on the corruption of morals and the wooden heart of a Jewess selling wine, the godfather came across the sacks and stopped in amazement.

- See what bags someone threw on the road! - he said, looking around, - there must be pork here too. Happiness climbed to someone to nakoladovat so many things! What a terrible bag! Suppose they are stuffed with Greek people and cakes, and that's good. At least there were some palyanitsy here, and then in shmak: the Jewess gives an octopus of vodka for every candy. Take it away sooner, so that no one sees. - Then he put on his shoulders a sack with Chub and the clerk, but felt that it was too heavy. “No, it will be hard for one to bear,” he said, “but, as if on purpose, the weaver Shapuvalenko is coming. Hello Ostap!

“Hello,” the weaver said, stopping.

- Where are you going?

- And so, I go where my legs go.

- Help, good man, to take down the bags! someone was caroling, and even thrown in the middle of the road. We will kindly split in half.

- Bags? and what are the bags with, with knishes or palyanitsa?

- Yes, I think there is everything.

Then they hastily pulled the sticks out of the fence, put the sack on them and carried them on their shoulders.

- Where are we taking him? in a shinok? The weaver asked on the way.

- It would be and I thought so, to the shinok; but the damned Jewess won't believe, she'll think that she's been stolen somewhere; besides, i just got out of the shank. We will take it to my hut. No one will bother us: the woman is not at home.

- Yes, surely not at home? Asked the careful weaver.

- Thank God, we are not quite crazy yet, - said the godfather, - the devil would bring me to where she is. She, I think, will drag herself along with women to the light.

- Who's there? - shouted the godfather's wife, hearing the noise in the entryway, made by the arrival of two friends with a sack, and opening the door.

Kum was dumbfounded.

- Here you go! - said the weaver, hands down.

Kum's wife was such a treasure, which there are many in this world. Just like her husband, she almost never sat at home and almost all day crawled with gossips and wealthy old women, praised and ate with great appetite and fought only in the morning with her husband, because at that time she sometimes saw him. Their hut was twice as old as the trousers of the volost clerk, the roof in some places was without straw. Only the remains of the wattle were visible, because anyone who left the house never took sticks for the dogs, in the hope that he would pass by the godfather's garden and pull out any of his wattle fence. The stove was not heated for three days. Everything that the tender spouse begged for from kind people, hid as far as possible from her husband and often arbitrarily took the prey from him if he did not have time to drink it in a shank. Kum, in spite of his usual composure, did not like to yield to her and that is why he almost always left the house with lanterns under both eyes, and the dear half, groaning, trudged to tell the old women about the excesses of her husband and about the beatings she had suffered from him.

Now one can imagine how the weaver and the godfather were puzzled by such an unexpected phenomenon. Having lowered the sack, they stepped in with themselves and covered it with the floors; but it was already too late: the godfather's wife, although she saw badly with old eyes, nevertheless noticed the sack.

- That is good! She said with an air in which the joy of the hawk was noticeable. - It's good that they have done so much! This is what kind people always do; only no, I think they picked it up somewhere. Show me now, hear, show me your bag this very hour!

“The bald devil will show you, not us,” said the godfather, sucking himself up.

- Do you care? - said the weaver, - we did the caroling, not you.

- No, you will show me, you worthless drunkard! - cried his wife, hitting the tall godfather with a fist in the chin and making his way to the bag.

But the weaver and the godfather bravely defended the sack and forced her to back away. No sooner had they recovered than the wife ran out into the hallway, already with a poker in her hands. She nimbly grabbed her husband's hands with the poker, weaving along the back and was already standing next to the sack.

- What have we allowed her? - said the weaver, waking up.

- Eh, what have we allowed! why did you allow it? - said the godfather coolly.

- You have a poker, apparently, iron! - said after a short silence the weaver, scratching his back. - My wife bought last year at the fair a poker, gave a beer cops, - that nothing ... does not hurt.

Meanwhile, the triumphant wife, putting the kaganets on the floor, untied the sack and looked into it. But, surely, her old eyes, which saw the bag so well, were deceived this time.

“Eh, there’s a whole boar here! She cried, clapping her hands with joy.

- Boar! do you hear, a whole boar! - the weaver godfather pushed. - And it's all your fault!

- What can you do! - said the godfather, shrugging his shoulders.

- Like what? what are we worth? take away the bag! well, get started!

- Go away! let's go! this is our boar! - shouted, speaking, the weaver.

- Go, go, you damn woman! this is not your good! - said, approaching, godfather.

The wife set to work again at the poker, but at that time Chub got out of the bag and stood in the middle of the passage, stretching like a man who has just awakened from a long sleep.

Kumova's wife screamed, hitting the floors with her hands, and everyone involuntarily opened their mouths.

- Well, she, a fool, says: a boar! This is not a boar! - said the godfather, widening his eyes.

- See what kind of person was thrown into the sack! - said the weaver, backing away from fright. - Say what you want, even crack, and not without evil spirits. After all, he will not get through the window!

- This is godfather! - cried, peering, godfather.

- Who did you think? - said Chub, grinning. - What, I threw a nice thing over you? I suppose you wanted to eat me instead of pork? Wait, I will please you: there is something else in the bag - if not a wild boar, then probably a pig or some other living creature. Something was constantly stirring under me.

The weaver and the godfather rushed to the sack, the mistress of the house clung to the opposite side, and the fight would have resumed if the clerk, now seeing that he had nowhere to hide, had not scrambled out of the sack.

Kumov's wife, dumbfounded, let go of her leg, for which she began to pull the clerk out of the bag.

- Here's another one! - the weaver cried out with fear, - the devil knows how it became in the world ... my head is spinning ... not sausages and not palyanits, but people are thrown into sacks!

- This is a clerk! - said the most astonished Chub. - Here you go! oh yes Solokha! put in a sack ... That's it, I see, she has a house full of sacks ... Now I know everything: she had two people in each sack. And I thought that she was only for me ... Here is Solokha for you!

The girls were a little surprised not to find one bag. "There is nothing to do, it will be with us and this" - babbled Oksana. Everyone took up the sack and loaded it onto the sled.

The head decided to be silent, reasoning: if he cries out to be released and untied the sack, the stupid girls will scatter, think that the devil is in the sack, and he will remain on the street, maybe until tomorrow.

Meanwhile, the girls, holding hands in unison, flew like a whirlwind, with a sled, across the slippery snow. A lot of them, naughty, sat on the sled; others climbed on the very head. The head decided to demolish everything. Finally they drove through, opened wide the doors in the entryway and the hut, and dragged in the sack with a laugh.

- Let's see, something lies here, - everyone shouted, rushing to untie.

Here the hiccups, which did not stop tormenting his head all the time he was sitting in the sack, intensified so much that he began to hiccup and cough loudly.

- Oh, someone is sitting here! - everyone shouted and in fright rushed out of the door.

- What the hell! Where are you rushing about like crazy? - said, entering the door, Chub.

- Oh, dad! - said Oksana, - someone is sitting in the bag!

- In the bag? where did you get this bag?

“The blacksmith threw him in the middle of the road,” everyone said suddenly.

“Well, then, didn't I say? ..” - Chub thought to himself.

- Why are you scared? let's see. Well, choloviche, I ask you not to get angry that we do not call you by name and patronymic, get out of the bag!

The head got out.

- Ah! - the girls screamed.

“And my head climbed into the same place,” Chub said to himself in bewilderment, measuring it from head to toe.

The head itself was no less embarrassed and did not know what to start.

- It must be cold outside? - he said, referring to Chub.

- There is a frost, - answered Chub. - And let me ask you, what do you lubricate your boots with, lard or tar?

He wanted to say something different, he wanted to ask: "How did you, head, got into this bag?" - but he himself did not understand how he uttered something completely different.

- Tar is better! - said the head. - Well, goodbye, Chub! - And, pulling on the droplets, left the hut.

- Why did I foolishly ask what he smears on his boots! - said Chub, looking at the doors through which the head came out. - Oh yes Solokha! to put such a person in a sack! .. See, you damn woman! And I'm a fool ... but where is that damned bag?

- I threw him into the corner, there is nothing else, - said Oksana.

- I know these things, there is nothing! submit it here: there is another one sitting there! Shake it well ... What, no? .. See, damn woman! And to look at her is like a saint, as if she never took a modest one in her mouth.

But let us leave Chuba pouring out our annoyance at our leisure and return to the blacksmith, because it’s probably already nine o'clock in the yard.

At first it seemed scary to Vakula when he rose from the ground to such a height that he could no longer see anything below, and flew like a fly under the very month so that if he had not bent down a little, he would have caught him with his hat. However, a little later, he cheered up and already began to make fun of the devil. He was amused to the extreme by how the devil sneezed and coughed when he removed the cypress cross from his neck and brought it to it. He deliberately raised his hand to scratch his head, and the devil, thinking that they were going to baptize him, flew even faster. Everything was bright above. The air was transparent in a light silver mist. Everything was visible, and even one could notice how a sorcerer swept past them in a whirlwind, sitting in a pot; like the stars, gathered in a heap, played blind man's buff; how a swarm of spirits swirled aside like a cloud; how the devil who danced during the month took off his cap when he saw a blacksmith galloping on horseback; how the broom was flying back, on which, apparently, the witch had just traveled to where she needed to ... they met a lot of other rubbish. Everyone, seeing the blacksmith, stopped for a minute to look at him and then again rushed further and continued his own; the blacksmith was flying; and suddenly St. Petersburg shone before him, all in flames. (Then there was illumination for some reason.) The devil, having flown over the barrier, turned into a horse, and the blacksmith saw himself on a dashing runner in the middle of the street.

My God! knock, thunder, shine; four-story walls are piled up on both sides; the clatter of the horse's hooves, the sound of the wheels echoed with thunder and echoed from four sides; houses grew and seemed to rise from the ground at every step; the bridges trembled; carriages flew; cabbies, posters shouted; snow whistled under a thousand sledges flying from all sides; pedestrians huddled and crowded under houses, riddled with bowls, and their huge shadows flashed along the walls, reaching up to the pipes and roofs with their heads. The blacksmith looked around in amazement. It seemed to him that all the houses fixed their innumerable fiery eyes on him and looked. He saw so many gentlemen in fur coats covered with cloth that he did not know who to take off his hat. “My God, how many people are there! - thought the blacksmith. - I think everyone who walks down the street in a fur coat is an assessor, sometimes an assessor! and those who ride in such wonderful carts with glass, those who are not mayors, then, surely, commissars, and maybe even more. " His words were interrupted by the devil's question: "Is it straight to go to the queen?" “No, it's scary,” thought the blacksmith. - Here somewhere, I don’t know, the Zaporozhian Cossacks, who were passing through Dikanka in the fall, landed. They were on their way from the Sich with the papers to the queen; all the same to consult with them. "

- Hey, Satan, get into my pocket and lead me to the Cossacks!

The devil lost weight in one minute and became so small that he easily got into his pocket. And Vakula did not have time to look around, when he found himself in front of a large house, entered, not knowing how, on the stairs, opened the door and leaned back a little from the glitter, seeing the cleaned room; but he cheered up a little when he recognized the very Zaporozhians who were passing through Dikanka, sitting on silk sofas, tucking their boots smeared with tar under them, and smoking the strongest tobacco, usually called roots.

- Hello, Panov! God help you! that's where we saw each other! - said the blacksmith, coming up close and bowing to the ground.

- What kind of person is there? - asked the one sitting in front of the blacksmith of the other, who was sitting further away.

- Didn't you know? - said the blacksmith, - it's me, Vakula, the blacksmith! When we drove through Dikanka in the fall, we passed it, God bless you all health and longevity, almost two days. And then I put a new tire on the front wheel of your wagon!

- A! - said the same Zaporozhets, - this is the same blacksmith who paints importantly. Hello, fellow countryman, why did God bring you?

- And so, I wanted to have a look, they say ...

- What a fellow countryman, - the Zaporozhets said, swaying himself, and wanting to show that he can speak Russian too, - what a great city?

The blacksmith did not want to disgrace himself and seem like a beginner, moreover, as they had occasion to see above this, he knew the literate language himself.

- A noble province! - he answered indifferently. - There is nothing to say: the houses are balish, the pictures are hanging behind the scenes. Many houses are inscribed with gold leaf letters to the extreme. Nothing to say, a wonderful proportion!

The Cossacks, having heard the blacksmith, who spoke so freely, drew a conclusion that was very beneficial for him.

- After we talk with you, fellow countryman, more; now we are going now to the queen.

- To the queen? And be gentle, sir, take me with you!

- You? - said the Zaporozhets with the look with which the uncle speaks to his four-year-old pupil, asking him to put him on a real, on a big horse. - What will you do there? No, you can't. - At the same time, a significant mine was expressed on his face. - We, brother, will talk about ours with the queen.

- Take it! The blacksmith insisted. - Ask! - he whispered softly to the devil, hitting his pocket with his fist.

Before he had time to say this, another Zaporozhets said:

- Let's take him, in fact, brothers!

- Let's take it! - said others.

- Put on the same dress as we do.

The blacksmith grabbed to pull on a green zupan, when suddenly the door opened and a man who entered with laces said that it was time to go.

It seemed strange again to the blacksmith when he rushed in a huge carriage, swaying on springs, when on both sides four-story houses ran back past him and the pavement, it seemed, was rolling under the horses' feet, thundering.

“My God, what a light! The blacksmith thought to himself. "It's never so bright here in the daytime."

The carriages stopped in front of the palace. The Cossacks went out, entered the magnificent entrance and began to climb the brilliantly lighted staircase.

- What a ladder! - the blacksmith whispered to himself, - it's a pity to stomp with your feet. What decorations! Here, they say, fairy tales lie! What the hell are they lying! oh my god, what a railing! What job! here one iron for fifty rubles went!

Having already climbed the stairs, the Cossacks went through the first hall. The blacksmith timidly followed them, fearing to slip on the floor at every step. Three halls passed, the blacksmith was still amazed. Entering the fourth, he involuntarily approached the picture hanging on the wall. It was a most pure virgin with a baby in her arms. “What a picture! what a wonderful painting! - he reasoned, - here, it seems, he speaks! seems alive! but a holy child! and the handles are pressed! and grins, poor! and the paints! oh my god, what colors! here vokhry, I think, and didn’t go for a penny, all the rage and the bungalow; and the blue one is still burning! important work! the ground must have been blasted. No matter how amazing these glints, however, this brass handle, - he continued, going up to the door and feeling the lock, - is even more worthy of surprise. What a clean dressing! all this, I think, was done by German blacksmiths for the most expensive prices ... "

Perhaps the blacksmith would have argued for a long time if the footman with braids had not pushed him by the arm and reminded him not to lag behind the others. The Cossacks passed two more halls and stopped. Then they were ordered to wait. Several generals in gold-embroidered uniforms were crowded in the hall. The Cossacks bowed in all directions and stood in a heap.

A minute later, he entered, accompanied by a whole retinue of majestic growth, a rather stout man in a hetman's uniform, in yellow boots. His hair was disheveled, one eye was slightly crooked, a sort of arrogant majesty was depicted on his face, a habit of command was visible in all movements. All the generals, who walked rather arrogantly in their golden uniforms, fussed about, and with low bows, it seemed, they were catching his every word and even the slightest movement, so that now they could fly to carry it out. But the hetman did not even pay attention, barely nodded his head and went up to the Cossacks.

The Zaporozhian Cossacks all bowed to their feet.

- Are you all here? - he asked drawlingly, pronouncing the words a little in the nose.

– That, all, dad!- answered the Cossacks, bowing again.

- Do you remember to speak the way I taught you?

- No, daddy, we will not forget.

- Is it the king? - asked the blacksmith of one of the Cossacks.

- Where are you the king! this is Potemkin himself, - he answered.

In another room, voices were heard, and the blacksmith did not know what to do with his eyes from the multitude of ladies who entered in satin dresses with long tails and courtiers in caftans embroidered with gold and with tufts back. He only saw one shine and nothing else. The Cossacks suddenly all fell to the ground and shouted in one voice:

- Have mercy, Mom! have mercy!

The blacksmith, seeing nothing, stretched himself out with all his zeal on the floor.

“Stand up,” came a commanding and at the same time pleasant voice over them. Some of the courtiers fussed and pushed the Cossacks.

- Let's not get up, Mom! we will not get up! let's die, but let's get up! - shouted the Cossacks.

Potemkin bit his lip, finally approached himself and whispered imperiously to one of the Cossacks. The Cossacks got up.

Then the blacksmith dared to raise his head and saw a short woman standing in front of him, somewhat stout, even powdered, with blue eyes, and at the same time with that majestically smiling look, which so knew how to conquer everything and could only belong to one reigning woman.

“His Serene Highness promised to introduce me today to my people, whom I have not yet seen,” said the lady with blue eyes, examining the Cossacks with curiosity. - Are you well kept here? - she continued, coming closer.

– Thank you, mom! They give good food, although the local sheep are not at all what we have in Zaporozhye - why not live somehow? ..

Potemkin winced, seeing that the Zaporozhian Cossacks were saying something completely different from what he taught them ...

One of the Zaporozhian Cossacks stepped forward, dumbfounded:

- Have mercy, Mom! Why are you destroying the faithful people? what made you angry? Did we hold the hand of a filthy Tatar; did they agree on anything with Turchin; have you betrayed you in deed or in thought? For what disgrace? Before we heard that you order to build fortresses from us everywhere; after listening what you want turn into carabinieri; now we hear new misfortunes. What is the fault of the Zaporozhye army? perhaps the one that transferred your army through Perekop and helped your generals to chop off the Crimeans? ..

Potemkin was silent and carelessly brushed his diamonds with a small brush, with which his hands were decked.

- What do you want? - Catherine asked carefully.

The Cossacks looked at each other significantly.

“Now is the time! The queen asks what you want! " The blacksmith said to himself and suddenly fell to the ground.

- Your royal majesty, do not order to be executed, order to have mercy! From what, if not in anger be told to your royal favor, the slivers are made, what is on your feet? I think that not a single Swiss in any country in the world will be able to do this. Oh my God, what if my wife had put on such slippers!

The Empress laughed. The courtiers laughed too. Potemkin frowned and smiled together. The Cossacks began to push the blacksmith's arm, wondering if he had lost his mind.

- Get up! - said the Empress affectionately. - If you so want to have such shoes, then it is not difficult to do. Bring him the most expensive shoes with gold right now! Indeed, I really like this innocence! Here's to you, '' the empress continued, fixing her eyes on a man with a plump but somewhat pale face who stood at a distance from other middle-aged people, whose modest caftan with large mother-of-pearl buttons showed that he did not belong to the court, `` an object worthy of your witty pen. !

- You, your imperial majesty are too gracious. You need at least La Fontaine here! - answered, bowing, the man with mother-of-pearl buttons.

“I’ll tell you on honor: I am still unconscious of your“ Brigadier ”. You read surprisingly well! However, - continued the empress, turning again to the Cossacks, - I heard that you will never marry in the Sich.

– Yak, mom! after all, you know yourself, a man cannot live without a zhinka, '' answered the same Zaporozhets who talked with the blacksmith, and the blacksmith was surprised to hear that this Zaporozhets, knowing such a well-literate language, spoke to the tsarina, as if on purpose, in the most rude, usually called the muzhik dialect. “Sly people! - he thought to himself, - it’s true, he’s doing it for a reason. ”

- We are not blacks, - the Zaporozhets continued, - but sinful people. Loads, like all honest Christianity, until soon. We have quite a few of those who have wives, just do not live with them in the Setch. There are those who have wives in Poland; there are those who have wives in Ukraine; there are those who have wives in Treshchina.

At this time the shoes were brought to the blacksmith.

- My God, what a decoration! He cried out happily, grabbing his shoes. - Your royal majesty! Well, when the shoes are on your feet and in them, hopefully, your honor, walk on the ice trick, what should be the very legs? I think at least pure sugar.

The Empress, who certainly had the most slender and charming legs, could not help smiling when she heard such a compliment from the lips of an innocent blacksmith, who in his Zaporozhye dress could be considered handsome, despite his swarthy face.

Delighted with such benevolent attention, the blacksmith was about to ask the queen well about everything: is it true that the kings eat only honey and lard, and the like; but, feeling that the Cossacks were pushing him under his sides, he decided to shut up; and when the empress, turning to the old people, began to ask how they live in the Sich, what customs are found, he, stepping back, bent down to his pocket, said quietly: "Get me out of here quickly!" - and suddenly found himself behind the barrier.

- Drowned! By God, he drowned! so that I do not leave this place, if I do not drown! - babbled a fat weaver, standing in a heap of Dikan women in the middle of the street.

- Well, am I what a liar? did I steal a cow from someone? have I jinxed someone that they have no faith in me? - shouted a woman in a Cossack scroll, with a purple nose, waving her arms. - So that I would not want to drink water, if the old Pepperchikha did not see with her own eyes how the blacksmith hanged himself!

- The blacksmith hanged himself? here you go! - Said the head, coming out of Chub, stopped and squeezed closer to those who were talking.

- Better tell you not to want to drink vodka, old drunkard! - answered the weaver, - you have to be as crazy as you to hang yourself! He drowned! drowned in the forehead! I know this as well as the fact that you were now at the shank.

- Shit! See, what I began to reproach! - angrily objected a woman with a purple nose. - Would be silent, you scoundrel! Don't I know that the clerk comes to see you every evening?

The weaver flushed.

- What a clerk? to whom is the clerk? what are you lying?

- Sexton? - sang, crowding to the arguing, the clerk's wife, in a sheepskin coat made of hare fur, covered with blue Chinese. - I'll let the clerk know! Who says this - a clerk?

- But who does the clerk go to! Said a woman with a purple nose, pointing to the weaver.

- So it's you, bitch, - said the clerk's wife, approaching the weaver, - is it you, the witch, fogging him up and giving him an unclean potion to come to you?

Get rid of me, Satan! The weaver said, backing away.

- See, damned witch, so that you do not wait for your children to see, you worthless! Ugh! .. - Here the deacon spat right in the eyes of the weaver.

The weaver wanted to do the same for herself, but instead spat in her unshaven beard on her head, which, in order to hear everything better, crept up to the arguing themselves.

“Oh, you nasty woman! - shouted the head, wiping his hollow face and raising the whip. This movement made everyone run wild with curses in different directions. - What an abomination! He repeated, continuing to wipe himself off. - So the blacksmith drowned! My God, what an important painter he was! what strong knives, sickles, plows he knew how to forge! What a power it was! Yes, - he continued, thinking, - there are few such people in our village. That is why I, while still sitting in the accursed sack, noticed that the poor thing was deeply out of sorts. So much for the blacksmith! was, and now not! And I was going to shoe my pockmarked mare! ..

And, being full of such Christian thoughts, his head quietly wandered into his hut.

Oksana was embarrassed when such news reached her. She had little faith in the eyes of Pepperchikha and the rumors of the women; she knew that the blacksmith was devout enough to dare to destroy his soul. But what if he really left with the intention of never returning to the village? And hardly anywhere else where there is such a fellow as a blacksmith! He loved her so much! He endured her whims the longest! The beauty all night under her blanket turned from the right side to the left, from the left to the right - and could not sleep. Then, dispersed in the enchanting nakedness, which the darkness of the night hid even from herself, she scolded herself almost aloud; then, having calmed down, she decided not to think about anything - and kept thinking. And everything was on fire; and by morning fell head over heels in love with the blacksmith.

Chub expressed neither joy nor sadness about Vakula's fate. His thoughts were occupied with one thing: he could not forget Solokha's treachery and the sleepy one did not stop scolding her.

Morning has come. The whole church was full of people even before the world. Elderly women in white namitki, in white cloth scrolls devoutly baptized themselves at the very entrance of the church. Noblewomen in green and yellow sweaters, and others even in blue kuntushi with gold backs and mustaches, stood in front of them. The girls, who had a whole shop of ribbons on their heads, and monists, crosses and ducats on their necks, tried to get even closer to the iconostasis. But in front of everyone were nobles and simple men with mustaches, with forelocks, with thick necks and freshly shaved chins, all mostly in kobenyaks, from under which a white scroll appeared, and in others a blue scroll. On all faces, wherever they looked, a holiday was visible. His head licked his lips, imagining how he would break his fast with sausage; the girls were thinking about how they would trick with the lads on the ice; the old women whispered prayers more diligently than ever. Throughout the church one could hear the Cossack Sverbyguz bowing down. Only Oksana stood as if she were not one of her own: she prayed and did not pray. Her heart was crowded with so many different feelings, one more annoying than the other, one more sad than the other, that her face expressed only strong embarrassment; tears trembled in my eyes. The girls could not understand the reasons for this and did not suspect that the blacksmith was to blame. However, not only Oksana was busy with the blacksmith. All the laymen noticed that the holiday was as if not a holiday; as if all something is missing. As unfortunate as it was, the clerk, after traveling in a sack, became hoarse and rattled in a barely audible voice; it is true that the visiting singing singer took the bass nicely, but it would be much better if there was a blacksmith, who always, as soon as they sang "Our Father" or "Cherubims," ​​climbed on the wing and brought out from there the same melody as they sing and in Poltava. In addition, he alone corrected the position of the church title. Matins have already departed; after matins the mass departed ... where, in fact, did the blacksmith disappear?

The devil and the blacksmith rushed back even faster the rest of the night. And in a moment Vakula found himself near his hut. At this time the cock crowed. "Where? - he shouted, grabbing the tail of the devil who wanted to run away, - wait, buddy, that's not all: I have not thanked you yet. Then, grabbing a twig, he gave him three blows, and the poor devil started to run like a peasant who had just been vaporized by the assessor. So, instead of leading, seducing and fooling others, the enemy of the human race was himself fooled. After that, Vakula entered the canopy, buried himself in the hay and slept until lunchtime. When he woke up, he was frightened when he saw that the sun was already high: "I slept through Matins and Mass!" Here the pious blacksmith plunged into despondency, arguing that it was God on purpose, as punishment for his sinful intention to destroy his soul, sent a dream that did not even allow him to be in such solemn holiday in the church. But, nevertheless, having reassured himself that next week he would confess in this priest and from this day he would begin to beat fifty bows in the whole year, he looked into the hut; but there was no one in it. Apparently Solokha has not returned yet. He carefully took his shoes out of his bosom and was again amazed at the expensive work and the wonderful incident of the previous night; washed, dressed as best as possible, put on the very dress that he got from the Cossacks, took out of the chest a new hat made of Reshelyov's smushies with a blue top, which he had never worn since the time he had bought it when he was in Poltava; he also took out a new belt of all colors; put it all together with the whip in a handkerchief and went straight to Chub.

Chub goggled his eyes when the blacksmith came in, and did not know what to wonder: whether that the blacksmith was resurrected, that the blacksmith dared to come to him, or that he was dressed up as such a dandy and Cossack. But he was even more amazed when Vakula untied his handkerchief and put in front of him a brand new hat and belt, which had not been seen in the village, and he fell at his feet and said in an imploring voice:

- Have mercy, dad! do not be angry! here's a whip for you: hit it as much as your heart desires, I surrender myself; I repent of everything; beat, but do not be angry only! You once fraternized with the deceased dad, ate bread and salt together and drank the magarych.

Chub saw, not without secret pleasure, how the blacksmith, who did not blow his mustache to anyone in the village, was bending nickels and horseshoes in his hand like buckwheat pancakes, that same blacksmith was lying at his feet ... him three times on the back.

- Well, it will be with you, get up! always listen to old people! Let's forget everything that was between us! Well, now tell me, what do you want?

- Give it back, dad, Oksana for me!

- Chub thought a little, looked at the cap and belt: the cap was wonderful, the belt was also not inferior to her; remembered the treacherous Solokha and said resolutely:

– Good! Send matchmakers!

- Ay! - Oksana screamed, stepping over the threshold and seeing the blacksmith, and stared with amazement and joy into his eyes.

- Look at the slivers I brought you! - said Vakula, - the ones worn by the queen.

- No! No! I don't need chereviks! - she said, waving her hands and not taking her eyes off him, - I am without the chereviks ... - Then she did not finish and blushed.

The blacksmith came closer, took her hand; the beauty lowered her eyes. She has never been so wonderfully good. The delighted blacksmith kissed her softly, and her face lit up more and more, and she became even better.

He drove through Dikanka of the blessed memory of the bishop, praised the place where the village stands, and, driving along the street, stopped in front of a new hut.

- Whose is this painted hut? - the Right Reverend asked at the beautiful woman with a child in her arms.

“Blacksmith Vakula,” Oksana told him, bowing, because it was she.

- Nice! nice job! - said the Right Reverend, looking at the doors and windows. And the windows were all circled in red; on the doors, there were Cossacks on horseback everywhere, with pipes in their teeth.

But the Right Reverend Vakula praised him even more when he learned that he had endured church repentance and freely painted the entire left wing with green paint with red flowers. This, however, is not all: on the side wall, as you enter the church, Vakula painted the devil in hell, so disgusting that everyone spat when they passed by; and the women, as soon as the child burst into tears in their arms, brought him to the picture and said: "He bach, yak kaka is painted!"- and the child, holding the tears, looked askance at the picture and pressed against the breast of its mother.

We call caroling to sing under the windows on the eve of Christmas songs called carols. The housewife, or the owner, or whoever stays at home with sausage, or bread, or a copper penny, will always throw into the bag to the one who makes a carol, than who is rich. They say that there was once a fool Kolyada, who was mistaken for a god, and that it was as if the Christmas carols had gone on for that. Who knows? It is not for us, ordinary people, to interpret this. Last year, Father Osip forbade caroling around the farmsteads, saying that it was as if the people were pleasing Satan. However, if you tell the truth, then there is no word about Kolyada in the carols. They often sing about the birth of Christ; and at the end they wish health to the owner, mistress, children and the whole house. Pasichnik's remark. (Note by Gogol.)

Anyone who comes from a foreign land is called a German, even if he is a Frenchman, or a crown prince, or a Swede - everything is German. (Note by Gogol.)

The last day before Christmas is over. Winter, clear night has come. The stars looked. The month majestically ascended to heaven to shine a light on good people and the whole world, so that everyone would have fun caroling and praising Christ. The frost was stronger than in the morning; but on the other hand it was so quiet that the cry of frost under the boot could be heard half a mile away. Not a single crowd of lads has yet appeared under the windows of the huts; for a month I was only peeking into them furtively, as if causing the girls who were dressing up to run out into the skiddy snow as soon as possible. Then smoke poured through the chimney of one hut in clouds and went like a cloud across the sky, and together with the smoke a witch rose astride a broomstick. If at this time the Sorochinsky assessor rode by on a troika of common horses, in a cap with a lamb band, made in the style of an Uhlan, in a blue sheepskin coat lined with black smushki, with a devilishly woven whip, with which he has the habit of urging his driver, then he would surely , noticed her, because not a single witch in the world escapes from the Sorochin assessor. He knows in every way how many pigs each woman has, and how many canvases are in the chest, and what exactly from his dress and household a good man will lay on Sunday in a shank. But the Sorochinsky assessor did not pass, and what does he care about strangers, he has his own volost. And meanwhile the witch rose so high that she glimmered above with only one black speck. But wherever a speck appeared, there the stars, one after another, disappeared in the sky. Soon the witch pulled on their full sleeve. Three or four were still shining. Suddenly, from the opposite side, another speck appeared, increased, began to stretch, and there was no longer a speck. A short-sighted man, at least put on his nose instead of glasses wheels from the Komissarova chaise, and then he would not have recognized what it is. In front, it was completely German: a narrow, incessantly twirling and sniffing everything that came across, the muzzle ended, like our pigs, in a round snout, the legs were so thin that if the jareskov's head had such, he would have broken them in the first goat. But at the back he was a real provincial solicitor in a uniform, because he had a tail hanging as sharp and long as the current uniform coat-tails; only by the goat's beard under the muzzle, by the small horns sticking out on his head, and that he was not whiter than a chimney sweep, one could guess that he was not a German and not a provincial solicitor, but simply a devil, who was left to wander around the white world last night and teach the sins of good people. Tomorrow, with the first bells for matins, he will run without looking back, tail between his legs, to his den. Meanwhile, the devil crept slowly towards a month and was about to reach out to grab him, but suddenly pulled it back, as if burnt, sucked his fingers, threw his foot and ran from the other side, and again jumped back and jerked his hand away. However, despite all the failures, the cunning devil did not leave his mischief. Running up, he suddenly grabbed a month with both hands, grimacing and blowing, throwing it from one hand to the other, like a peasant who brought fire with his bare hands for his cradle; at last he hastily put it in his pocket and, as if he had never been in anything, ran on. In Dikanka, no one heard how the devil stole a month. True, the volost clerk, getting out of the shank on all fours, saw that he had been dancing in heaven for no reason at all, and assured the whole village with God; but the laity shook their heads and even laughed at him. But what was the reason for the devil to decide on such a lawless deed? And here's what: he knew that the rich Cossack Chub was invited by the clerk to the kutya, where they would be: head; a clerk's relative in a blue frock coat who came from the Bishop's singing clerk, who sang the lowest bass; Cossack Sverbyguz and some others; where, in addition to kutya, there will be varenukha, vodka distilled for saffron and a lot of everything edible. Meanwhile, his daughter, a beauty in the whole village, will stay at home, and a blacksmith, a strong man and a fellow will come to her daughter at any place, who was devilishly repulsive to the sermons of Father Kondrat. In his leisure time, the blacksmith was engaged in painting and was known as the best painter in the whole neighborhood. The centurion L ... who was still alive at that time himself summoned him to Poltava on purpose to paint a board fence near his house. All the bowls from which the Dikan Cossacks sipped borscht were painted by a blacksmith. The blacksmith was a God-fearing man and often wrote images of saints: and now you can still find in T ... the church of his evangelist Luke. But the triumph of his art was one painting painted on the church wall in the right narthex, in which he depicted Saint Peter on the day of the Last Judgment, with keys in his hands, driving out an evil spirit from hell; the frightened devil rushed in all directions, anticipating his death, and the sinners imprisoned before beat and chased him with whips, logs and everything that came to hand. While the painter was working on this picture and writing it on a large wooden board, the devil did his best to interfere with him: he pushed it invisibly under the arm, lifted ash from the furnace in the smithy and sprinkled it on the picture; but, in spite of everything, the work was over, the board was brought into the church and embedded in the wall of the narthex, and from that time the devil vowed to take revenge on the blacksmith. Only one night remained for him to stagger in the world; but that night, too, he tried to find something to vent his anger on the blacksmith. And for this he decided to steal a month, in the hope that old Chub was lazy and not easy to climb, but he was not so close to the clerk from the hut: the road went behind the village, past the mills, past the cemetery, skirting a ravine. Even during a month's night, varenukha and vodka infused with saffron could have lured Chub, but in such darkness it would hardly have been possible for anyone to pull him off the stove and call him out of the hut. And the blacksmith, who has long been at odds with him, in his presence would never dare to go to his daughter, despite his strength. In this way, as soon as the devil hid his month in his pocket, suddenly it became so dark all over the world that not everyone would find their way to the shank, not only to the clerk. The witch, seeing herself suddenly in the dark, screamed. Then the devil, having rode up like a petty demon, grabbed her by the arm and began to whisper in his ear what is usually whispered to the entire female family. Wonderfully arranged in our world! Everything that lives in it, everything is trying to adopt and imitate one another. Before, it happened that in Mirgorod one judge and a mayor used to wander in winter in sheepskin coats covered with cloth, and all the petty officials simply wore naked; now both the assessor and the podkomoriy have otmala themselves new fur coats from Reshelylov's smushies with a cloth cover. The clerk and volost clerk for the third year took a blue Chinese woman for six hryvnia arshins. The sexton made himself nanke trousers and a vest from striped garus for the summer. In a word, everything climbs into people! When these people will not be vain! You can bet that many will find it surprising to see the devil set off for himself as well. The most annoying thing is that he probably imagines himself a handsome man, while the figure is ashamed to look. Mug, as Foma Grigorievich says, is an abomination an abomination, but he also builds love chickens! But in the sky and under the sky it became so dark that it was impossible to see anything what was happening further between them. - So you, godfather, have not yet been with the clerk in the new hut? - Said the Cossack Chub, coming out of the door of his hut, to a lean, tall, in a short sheepskin coat, a peasant with an overgrown beard, showing that for more than two weeks a piece of braid had not touched her, with which peasants usually shave their beards for lack of a razor. - There will now be a good drink! Chub continued, grinning at his face. - As soon as we are not late. At this, Chub straightened his belt, which tightly intercepted his sheepskin coat, pulled on his cap tighter, squeezed the whip in his hand — fear and a thunderstorm of annoying dogs; but, looking up, he stopped ... - What the devil! Look! look, Panas! .. - What? - said the godfather and raised his head up also. - Like what? not a month! - What an abyss! Indeed, there is no month. - That is something that is not, - uttered Chub with some annoyance at the invariable indifference of his godfather. “You probably don’t need it.” - What should I do! - It was necessary, - continued Chub, wiping his mustache with his sleeve, - some devil, so that he did not have a chance, the dog, to drink a glass of vodka in the morning, to intervene! I looked out the window: the night is a miracle! Light, snow shines with a month. Everything was visible as in the daytime. I didn't have time to go out the door - and now, at least gouge out an eye! Chub grumbled and scolded for a long time, and meanwhile at the same time he was thinking about what to decide on. He wanted to death to chat about all sorts of nonsense at the clerk's, where, without any doubt, the head, and the visiting bass, and the tar Mikita, who went every two weeks to Poltava for the auction and made such jokes that all the laymen took up their bellies laughing. Chub had already seen the varenukha mentally standing on the table. It was all tempting, really; but the darkness of the night reminded him of that laziness which was so dear to all the Cossacks. How good it would be to lie now, legs tucked under you, on the couch, quietly smoking the cradle and listening through the intoxicating slumber to the carols and songs of cheerful boys and girls crowding in heaps under the windows. Without any doubt, he would have decided on the latter if he had been alone, but now both of them are not so bored and scared to walk in the dark night, and they did not want to appear lazy or cowardly in front of others. After finishing the swearing, he turned to his godfather again: - So no, godfather, months?- No. - Wonderful, really! Let me smell the tobacco. You, godfather, have a glorious tobacco! Where do you get it? - What the hell, glorious! - answered the godfather, covering the birch tavlinka, punctured with patterns. - The old chicken doesn't sneeze! “I remember,” Chub continued in the same way, “the late shinkar Zozulya once brought me tobacco from Nizhyn. Oh, there was tobacco! good tobacco was! So what, godfather, how can we be? it's dark outside. - So, perhaps, we'll stay at home, - said the godfather, grabbing the door handle. If the godfather had not said this, then Chub would surely have decided to stay, but now it was as if something was jerking him to go against it. - No, godfather, let's go! no, you have to go! Having said this, he was already annoyed with himself that he had said. It was very unpleasant for him to trudge on such a night; but he was comforted by the fact that he himself deliberately wanted it and did not do as he was advised. Kum, not expressing the slightest movement of annoyance on his face, like a man who decisively does not care whether to stay at home or trudge out of the house, looked around, scratched his shoulders with a batog stick, and the two godfathers set off on the road. Now let's see what the beautiful daughter is doing, left alone. Oksana is not yet seventeen years old, as in almost all the world, and on the other side of Dikanka, and on this side of Dikanka, there were only speeches about her. The group proclaimed in a herd that the best girl has never been and will never be in the village. Oksana knew and heard everything that was said about her, and was capricious as a beauty. If she had not walked in a block and a spare tire, but in some kind of hood, she would have dispersed all her girls. The couple chased her in droves, but having lost patience, little by little they left and turned to others, not so spoiled. Only the blacksmith was stubborn and did not abandon his red tape, despite the fact that he was treated no better than others. After her father left, she dressed up for a long time and cursed herself in front of a small tin-framed mirror and could not stop looking at herself. “What do people want to glorify as if I'm good? She said, as if absentmindedly, just to chat about something with herself. "People lie, I'm not good at all." But a face flashed in the mirror, fresh, alive in childhood youth, with shining black eyes and an inexpressibly pleasant smile that burned through the soul, suddenly proved the opposite. “Are my black eyebrows and eyes,” the beauty continued, not releasing a mirror, “so good that there is no one equal to them in the world? What's so good about that upturned nose? and in the cheeks? and in the lips? How good are my black braids? Wow! they can be frightened in the evening: they, like long snakes, twisted and coiled around my head. I see now that I am not good at all! - and pushing the mirror a little further away from her, she cried out: - No, I'm good! Oh, how good! Miracle! What joy I will bring to the one who will be my wife! How my husband will admire me! He will not remember himself. He will kiss me to death. " - Wonderful girl! - whispered the blacksmith who entered quietly, - and she has little boasting! He stands for an hour, looking in the mirror, and does not look enough, and still praises himself aloud! “Yes, lads, am I a match for you? you look at me, ”the pretty coquette went on,“ how smoothly I am; my shirt is sewn with red silk. And what ribbons on the head! You will not see a century richer than a galloon! All this was bought for me by my father so that the best fellow in the world would marry me! " And, smiling, she turned in the other direction and saw the blacksmith ... She screamed and stood sternly in front of him. The blacksmith lowered his hands. It is difficult to tell what the swarthy face of the wonderful girl expressed: both the severity in it was visible, and through the severity there was some kind of mockery of the embarrassed blacksmith, and a barely noticeable color of annoyance was thinly spreading over her face; and all this was so mixed up and it was so incredibly good that kissing her a million times - that was all that could be done then the best. - Why did you come here? - so Oksana began to speak. - Do you want to be kicked out the door with a shovel? You are all masters of driving up to us. You will instantly sniff out when the fathers are not at home. Oh, I know you! Is my chest ready? - It will be ready, my dear, after the holiday it will be ready. If you knew how much you fiddled around him: two nights did not leave the smithy; but not a single priest will have such a chest. I put the iron on the chain, which I didn’t put on the centurion’s cocktail party when I went to work in Poltava. And how will it be scheduled! Although the whole neighborhood go out with your little white legs, you will not find such a thing! Red and blue flowers will be scattered throughout the field. It will burn like heat. Don't be angry with me! Let me at least talk, at least look at you! - Who forbids you, speak and look! Then she sat down on the bench and looked again in the mirror and began to straighten her braids on her head. She looked at her neck, at her new shirt, embroidered with silk, and a subtle feeling of self-satisfaction was expressed on her lips, on fresh cheeks and gleamed in her eyes. - Let me sit next to you! - said the blacksmith. - Sit down, - said Oksana, keeping the same feeling in her lips and in her satisfied eyes. - Wonderful, beloved Oksana, let me kiss you! - said the encouraged blacksmith and pulled her to him, intending to grab a kiss; but Oksana turned her cheeks, which were already at an imperceptible distance from the blacksmith's lips, and pushed him away. What more do you want? Whenever he needs honey, he needs a spoon! Go away, your hands are tougher than iron. And you yourself smell like smoke. I think I got soot all over me. Then she brought up the mirror and again began to pretend in front of him. “She doesn't love me,” the blacksmith thought to himself, hanging his head. - She has all the toys; but I stand in front of her like a fool, and I keep my eyes on her. And everything would stand before her, and the century would not take her eyes off her! Wonderful girl! what would I not give to find out what is in her heart, whom she loves! But no, she has no need for anyone. She admires herself; torments me, poor man; but I do not see the light behind the sadness; and I love her so much as no other person in the world has loved and will never love. " - Is it true that your mother is a witch? - said Oksana and laughed; and the blacksmith felt that everything inside him laughed. This laughter seemed to resonate at once in his heart and in his quietly quivering veins, and with all this annoyance sank into his soul that he was not in the power to kiss a face so pleasantly laughed. - What do I care about my mother? You are my mother and father, and everything that is dear in the world. If the king called me and said: “Blacksmith Vakula, ask me for everything that is best in my kingdom, I will give everything to you. I will order you to make a gold smithy, and you will forge with silver hammers. " “I don’t want,” I would say to the tsar, “neither precious stones, nor a gold smithy, nor your whole kingdom: give me my Oksana better!” - See what you are! Only my father himself did not fail. You will see when he doesn’t marry your mother, ”Oksana said with a sly grin. - But the girls don't come ... What would that mean? It's high time to carol. I get bored. - God be with them, my beauty! - No matter how it is! the boys will probably come with them. This is where the balls will go. I can imagine what funny stories they will tell! - So you have fun with them? - Yes, it's more fun than with you. A! someone knocked; right, the girls with the boys. “What should I wait any longer? The blacksmith said to himself. - She makes fun of me. I am as dear to her as a rusted horseshoe. But if that's the case, at least the other will not get to laugh at me. Let me just notice who she likes more than mine; I will wean ... " A knock on the door and a voice that sounded sharply in the cold: "Open it!" - interrupted his reflections. - Wait, I'll open it myself, - said the blacksmith and went out into the entrance, intending to break off the sides of the first person who came across from his annoyance. The frost increased, and it became so cold at the top that the devil jumped from one hoof to another and blew into his fist, wanting to somehow warm up his frozen hands. It is not surprising, however, that someone who pushed from morning to morning in hell, where, as you know, is not as cold as ours in winter, and where, putting on a cap and standing in front of the he is sinners with the pleasure with which a woman usually roasts sausage for Christmas. The witch herself felt that it was cold, despite the fact that she was warmly dressed; and therefore, raising her hands up, put her foot down and, bringing herself to such a position as a man flying on skates, without moving a single joint, descended through the air, as if along an icy sloping mountain, and straight into a pipe. The devil followed her in the same order. But since this animal is more agile than any dandy in stockings, it is not surprising that at the very entrance to the chimney he ran over the neck of his mistress, and both found themselves in a spacious stove between the pots. The traveler quietly pushed back the shutter, to see if her son had called her Vakula to the guests' hut, but when she saw that there was no one there, turning off only the bags that lay in the middle of the hut, she climbed out of the stove, threw off the warm casing, recovered, and no one could find out that she rode a broomstick a minute ago. The mother of the blacksmith Vakula was no more than forty years old. She was neither good nor ugly. It’s hard to be good in those years. However, she was so good at attracting the most staid Cossacks to herself (which, by the way, didn’t interfere, by the way, notice that there was little need for beauty) that both the head and the clerk Osip Nikiforovich visited her (of course, if the clerk was not at home), and the Cossack Korniy Chub, and the Cossack Kasyan Sverbyguz. And, to her credit, she knew how to skillfully deal with them. None of them even thought that he had a rival. Was it a devout peasant, or a nobleman, as the Cossacks call themselves, dressed in a kobenyak with a vidlogo, on Sunday to church or, if the weather is bad, in a shinok, how not to go to Solokha, not to eat fatty dumplings with sour cream and not to chat in a warm a hut with a talkative and obsequious mistress. And the nobleman deliberately gave a big hook for this before he reached the shank, and called it - to go along the road. And whether Solokha used to go to church on a holiday, putting on a bright plakht with a Chinese spare wheel, and over her blue skirt, on which a golden mustache was sewn at the back, and stand right next to the right wing, then the clerk was already surely coughing and squinting involuntarily into that side of the eye; He stroked his mustache, wrapped the donkey around his ear and said to his neighbor who was standing near: “Eh, good woman! damn woman! " Solokha bowed to everyone, and everyone thought that she bowed to him alone. But a hunter to interfere in other people's affairs would immediately notice that Solokha was the most friendly of all with the Cossack Chub. Chub was a widow; eight stacks of bread always stood in front of his hut. Each time two pairs of hefty oxen poked their heads out of the wicker barn into the street and bellowed when they envied a walking godmother - a cow, or an uncle - a fat bull. A bearded goat climbed to the very roof and rattled from there in a harsh voice, like a mayor, teasing the turkeys who were performing in the courtyard and turning his back when he envied his enemies, the boys, who mocked his beard. Chub's chests contained a lot of linen, zhupans and old kuntushi with gold braids: his late wife was a dandy. In the garden, besides poppy seeds, cabbage, sunflowers, two fields of tobacco were sown every year. Solokha did not find it superfluous to add all this to her farm, thinking in advance about what order it would take when it passed into her hands, and redoubled her favor to the old Chub. And so that somehow her son Vakula did not drive up to his daughter and did not have time to tidy everything up for himself, and then probably would not let her get in the way of anything, she resorted to the usual means of all forty-year-old gossips: to quarrel Chuba with the blacksmith as often as possible. Perhaps these very cunning and sharpness of her were to blame for the fact that here and there the old women began to talk, especially when they drank too much at a merry gathering that Solokha was like a witch; that the boy Kizyakolupenko saw behind her a tail no larger than a woman's spindle; that even the Thursday before last she had crossed the road like a black cat; that a pig once ran to the priest, cried like a rooster, put on the cap of Father Kondrat and ran back. It happened that when the old women were talking about this, some cow shepherd Tymish Korostiyy came. He did not fail to tell how in the summer, in front of Petrovka herself, when he went to bed in the barn, having piled straw under his head, he saw with his own eyes that the witch, with a loose scythe, in one shirt, began to milk the cows, and he could not move, so was bewitched; After milking the cows, she came to him and anointed his lips with something so disgusting that he spat after that all day. But all this is something doubtful, because only one assessor of Sorochin can see the witch. And that is why all the eminent Cossacks waved their hands when they heard such speeches. "Suchi women are bullshit!" - there was their usual answer. Crawling out of the stove and recovering, Solokha, like a kind mistress, began to clean up and put everything in its place, but did not touch the sacks: "Vakula brought this, let him carry it out himself!" The devil meanwhile, when he was still flying into the chimney, somehow accidentally turning around, he saw Chub in hand with his godfather, already far from the hut. In an instant he flew out of the stove, ran across their path and began to tear piles of frozen snow from all sides. A blizzard arose. The air went white. The snow tossed back and forth in a net and threatened to cover the eyes, mouth and ears of pedestrians. And the devil flew back into the chimney, firmly convinced that Chub would come back with his godfather, catch the blacksmith and mark him off so that for a long time he would not be able to pick up a brush and paint offensive caricatures. In fact, as soon as a snowstorm had risen and the wind began to cut right in the eyes, as Chub had already expressed remorse and, pushing deeper on the droplet's head, treated himself, the devil and godfather, with swearing. However, this annoyance was feigned. Chub was very glad of the rising snowstorm. The clerk was still eight times the distance they had traveled. The travelers turned back. The wind was blowing in the back of the head; but through the pouring snow nothing could be seen. - Stop, godfather! We seem to be going in the wrong direction, "Chub said, moving away a little," I don't see a single hut. Oh, what a blizzard! Turn around, godfather, a little to the side, won't you find a way; and in the meantime I will look here. The evil spirits will pull away to hang around in such a blizzard! Remember to scream when you find your way. Eck, what a pile of snow has satan in the eyes! The road, however, was not visible. Kum, stepping aside, wandered back and forth in long boots, and finally came across a shinok. This find made him so happy that he forgot everything and, shaking off the snow, entered the passage, not at all worrying about the godfather who remained on the street. It seemed to Chub that he had found the way; stopping, he began to shout at the top of his lungs, but seeing that the godfather was not, he decided to go himself. After walking a little, he saw his hut. Drifts of snow lay beside her and on the roof. Slapping his hands frozen in the cold, he began to knock on the door and shout commanding his daughter to unlock it. - What do you want here? The blacksmith who came out shouted sternly. Chub, recognizing the voice of the blacksmith, stepped back a little. “Eh, no, this is not my house,” he said to himself, “the blacksmith will not wander into my house. Again, if you look closely, it is not Kuznetsova. Whose hut would it be? Here on! did not recognize! this is the lame Levchenko, who recently married his young wife. His only hut is similar to mine. It seemed to me and at first a little strange that I came home so soon. However, Levchenko is now sitting with the clerk, I know that; Why a blacksmith? .. Hey! he goes to his young wife. Here's how! good! .. now I understand everything. " - Who are you and why are you hanging around under the doors? - said the blacksmith sterner than before, and stepping closer. "No, I will not tell him who I am," thought Chub, "what a good thing, he will still pin it down, you damned bastard!" - and, changing his voice, answered: - It's me, good man! came to your amusement to poke a little under the windows. - Go to hell with your carols! Vakula shouted angrily. - What are you standing there for? Do you hear, get out now! Chub himself already had this prudent intention; but he felt annoyed that he was forced to obey the orders of the blacksmith. It seemed that some evil spirit was pushing him by the arm and forcing him to say something contrary to it. - Why did you really scream like that? - he said in the same voice, - I want to carol, and it's full! - Hey! Yes, you won't get away from words! .. - Following these words, Chub felt a painful blow to his shoulder. - Yes, that's you, as I see, you are already starting to fight! - he said, stepping back a little. - Come on, let's go! - shouted the blacksmith, rewarding Chub with another impetus. - What are you! - said Chub in a voice that portrayed pain, annoyance, and shyness. - You, I see, are fighting in earnest, and still painfully fighting! - Come on, let's go! - shouted the blacksmith and slammed the door. - Look how brave you are! - said Chub, left alone in the street. - Try to come! see what! here is a big swell! Do you think I won't find a court for you? No, my dear, I'll go and go straight to the commissioner. You will know me! I will not see that you are a blacksmith and a painter. However, look at the back and shoulders: I think there are blue spots. Must have hit you painfully, son of the enemy! It’s a pity that it’s cold and you don’t want to throw off the casing! Wait, you demonic blacksmith, so that the devil beat both you and your smithy, you will dance with me! You damn shibenik! However, now he is not at home. Solokha, I think, is sitting alone. Um ... it's not far from here; would go! The time is now such that no one will catch us. Maybe even that, it will be possible ... See, how painfully the damned blacksmith beat! Here Chub, having scratched his back, went the other way. The pleasantness that awaited him ahead of him during his meeting with Solokha diminished the pain a little and made insensitive even the very frost that crackled along all the streets, not drowned out by the blizzard whistle. From time to time on his face, whose beard and mustache the blizzard had lathered up with snow more dexterously than any barber, tyrannically snatching his victim by the nose, a semi-sweet mine appeared. But if, however, the snow had not baptized back and forth before our eyes, then for a long time it would have been possible to see Chub stopping, scratching his back, saying: "The damned blacksmith beat painfully!" - and set off again. At a time when an agile dandy with a tail and a goat beard flew out of the pipe and then again into the pipe, which hung in a sling at his side of the ladder, in which he hid the stolen month, somehow accidentally caught in the stove, and the month disappeared, using In this case, it flew out through the pipe of Solokhina's khata and smoothly ascended through the sky. Everything lit up. The snowstorm was gone. The snow lit up in a wide silver field and sprinkled with crystal stars. The frost seemed to have warmed up. Crowds of boys and girls showed up with sacks. The songs rang out, and there were no caroling crowds under the rare hut. The month shines wonderfully! It is difficult to tell how good it is to knock together on such a night between a bunch of laughing and singing girls and between boys, ready for all the jokes and inventions that a cheerfully laughing night can only suggest. It's warm under the tight casing; from the frost the cheeks burn even more vividly; and on pranks, the evil one pushes from behind. Heaps of girls with sacks broke into Chub's hut, surrounded Oksana. Shouts, laughter, stories deafened the blacksmith. Everyone vied with each other in a hurry to tell the beauty something new, unloaded the sacks and boasted of pastries, sausages, dumplings, which they had already managed to collect for their carols. Oksana, it seemed, was in perfect pleasure and joy, chatting now with the one, now with the other and laughing incessantly. With some vexation and envy, the blacksmith looked at such gaiety, and this time he cursed the carols, although he himself was crazy about them. - Eh, Odarka! - said the cheerful beauty, turning to one of the girls, - you have new shanks! Oh, how good! and with gold! It's good for you, Odarka, you have a person who buys everything for you; and I have no one to get such glorious trolleys. - Do not grieve, my beloved Oksana! - picked up the blacksmith, - I will get you such shanks, which a rare lady wears. - You? - said, quickly and haughtily looking at him, Oksana. - I'll see where you can get the slippers that I could put on my leg. Can't you bring the ones worn by the queen? - You see what you wanted! Shouted the maiden crowd with a laugh. “Yes,” the beautiful woman continued proudly, “be all of you witnesses: if the blacksmith Vakula brings the very shanks worn by the queen, then here is my word that I will marry him that very hour. The girls took the capricious beauty with them. - Laugh, laugh! - said the blacksmith, going out after them. - I'm laughing at myself! I think, and I cannot think of where my mind has gone. She does not love me - well, God is with her! as if only Oksana was alone in the whole world. Thank God, there are many good people in the countryside without her. What is Oksana? she will never have a good mistress; she is only a craftswoman to dress up. No, complete, it's time to stop fooling around. But at the very time when the blacksmith was preparing to be decisive, some evil spirit carried before him a laughing image of Oksana, who said mockingly: "Get, blacksmith, the czarina's cribs, I will marry you!" Everything in him was worried, and he thought only of Oksana alone. Crowds of carols, boys especially, girls especially, hurried from one street to another. But the blacksmith walked and saw nothing and did not participate in those merriments that he once loved more than anyone else. The devil, meanwhile, was seriously softening at Solokha's: he kissed her hand with such antics as an assessor at a priest’s, grabbed his heart, groaned and said bluntly that if she did not agree to satisfy his passions and, as usual, reward, then he was ready to everything: he will throw himself into the water, and send his soul straight into the hell. Solokha was not so cruel, moreover, the devil, as you know, acted at the same time with her. She did love to see the crowd dragging behind her and was rarely without company; this evening, however, I thought to spend it alone, because all the eminent inhabitants of the village were invited to the clerk for kutya. But everything went differently: the devil had just presented his demand, when suddenly he heard the voice of a hefty head. Solokha ran to open the door, and the agile devil climbed into the lying sack. Head, shaking off the snow from his drops and drinking a glass of vodka from Solokha's hands, said that he did not go to the clerk, because a blizzard had arisen; and when he saw the light in her hut, he turned to her, intending to spend the evening with her. Before the head had time to say this, a knock was heard at the door and the voice of the clerk. - Hide me somewhere, - the head whispered. “I don’t want to meet with the clerk now. Solokha thought for a long time where to hide such a dense guest; finally chose the largest bag of coal; charcoal was poured into a tub, and a stout head, with a mustache, with a head and droplets, climbed into the sack. The clerk entered, grunting and rubbing his hands, and said that he had no one and that he was heartily happy about this occasion. take a walk a little at her and was not afraid of a blizzard. Then he came closer to her, coughed, grinned, touched his full naked hand with his long fingers and said with an air in which both slyness and complacency were shown: - And what is it with you, magnificent Solokha? - And having said this, he jumped back a little. - Like what? Ruka, Osip Nikiforovich! - answered Solokha. - Hm! hand! heh! heh! heh! - said the clerk heartily pleased with his beginning and walked around the room. - And what is this with you, dear Solokha? - he said with the same look, approaching her again and grabbing her neck lightly with his hand, and jumped back in the same order. - As if you do not see, Osip Nikiforovich! - answered Solokha. - Neck, but on the neck it is monisto. - Hm! monisto on the neck! heh! heh! heh! - And the clerk walked around the room again, rubbing his hands. - And what is this with you, incomparable Solokha? .. - It is not known what the clerk would touch with his long fingers, when suddenly there was a knock on the door and the voice of the Cossack Chub. - Oh, my God, an outsider! - the clerk shouted in fright. - What now if someone of my rank is caught? .. Will reach Kondrat's father! .. But the clerk's fears were of a different kind: more than that, he was afraid that half of him would not recognize him, which with her already terrible hand made the narrowest of his thick braid. “For God's sake, virtuous Solokha,” he said, trembling all over. - Your kindness, as Luke's scripture says chapter trine ... trine ... knock, by God, knock! Oh, hide me somewhere! Solokha poured coal into a tub from another sack, and the clerk, who was not too bulky, climbed into it and sat down at the very bottom, so that over it could be poured from another half sack of coal. - Hello, Solokha! - said, entering the hut, Chub. - You, perhaps, did not expect me, huh? really didn’t expect? maybe I interfered? .. - Chub continued, showing on his face a cheerful and significant face, which made it known in advance that his clumsy head was working and was preparing to let go of some sharp and intricate joke. - Maybe you were having fun with someone here? .. maybe you hid someone already, huh? - And, delighted with this remark, Chub laughed, inwardly triumphant that he alone was enjoying Solokha's favor. - Well, Solokha, now give me a drink of vodka. I think my throat is frozen from the damn frost. God sent such a night before Christmas! How she grabbed, do you hear, Solokha, how she grabbed ... my hands are ossified: I won't open the casing! how the blizzard grabbed ... - Open it! - came a voice on the street, accompanied by a push at the door. “Someone is knocking,” said Chub, who had stopped. - Open it! - shouted stronger than before. - It's a blacksmith! - said Chub, clutching at the droplets. - Do you hear, Solokha, take me where you want; I would never want to appear to this damned bastard, so that he would run up to him, the devil's son, under both eyes on a bubble in a shock of size! Solokha, frightened herself, rushed about like a madman and, having forgotten, gave a sign to Chub to climb into the very bag in which the clerk was already sitting. The poor clerk did not even dare to cough and groan in pain when a heavy peasant sat down almost on his head and placed his boots, frozen in the frost, on both sides of his temples. The blacksmith entered without a word, without taking off his hat, and almost fell on the bench. It is noticeable that he was quite out of sorts. At the very time when Solokha was closing the door behind him, someone knocked again. It was the Cossack Sverbyguz. It was no longer possible to hide this in a bag, because even such a bag could not be found. He was shorter in body than the head itself and taller than Chubov's godfather. And so Solokha took him out into the garden to hear from him everything that he wanted to tell her. The blacksmith absentmindedly looked around the corners of his hut, listening at times to the far-off songs of the carols; Finally he fixed his eyes on the bags: “Why are these bags lying here? it would be high time to get them out of here. Through this stupid love, I became completely stupid. Tomorrow is a holiday, and there is still all sorts of rubbish in the hut. Take them to the forge! " Then the blacksmith sat down at the huge sacks, tied them up tighter and prepared to load them on his shoulders. But it was noticeable that his thoughts were walking, God knows where, otherwise he would have heard Chub hissed when the hair on his head was fastened by the rope that had tied the sack, and the sturdy head began to hiccup quite clearly. - Doesn't this worthless Oksana get out of my mind? - said the blacksmith, - I don't want to think about her; but everything is thought, and, as if on purpose, only about her. Why is it so that the thought against its will climbs into the head? What the hell, the bags seem to be heavier than before! There must be something else besides coal. I'm a fool! I had forgotten that now everything seems more difficult to me. Before, it used to be, I could bend and unbend a copper penny and a horse shoe in one hand; but now I won't lift the sacks of coal. Soon I will fall from the wind. No, he cried, after a pause and being encouraged, what a woman I am! I will not let anyone laugh at me! At least ten of these bags, I will lift everything. - And he cheerfully heaped sacks on his shoulders, which two hefty people would not have carried. “Take this one too,” he continued, picking up the little one, at the bottom of which the devil lay curled up. - Here, it seems, I put my instrument down. - Having said this, he left the hut, whistling a song:

I don’t bother with the woman.

Noisier and noisier songs and shouts were heard in the streets. The crowds of the crowded people were increased by those who still came from the neighboring villages. The couples were naughty and furious. Often a funny song was heard between the carols, which one of the young Cossacks managed to put together. Then suddenly one of the crowd, instead of carols, let go of the generosity and roared at the top of his lungs:

Shchedrik, vedrik!
Give a dumpling,
Breast of porridge,
Kilce kovbaski!

Laughter rewarded the entertainer. The small windows were raised, and the lean hand of the old woman, who alone remained in the huts with their dignified fathers, protruded from the window with a sausage in their hands or a piece of cake. Couples and girls vied with sacks and caught their prey. In one place the boys, coming from all sides, surrounded a crowd of girls: noise, shouting, one threw a lump of snow, the other pulled out a sack with all sorts of things. In another place, the girls caught the boy, substituted his leg, and he flew headlong with the sack to the ground. It seemed that they were ready to have fun all night long. And the night, as if on purpose, was so luxuriously glowing! and the light of the moon seemed even whiter from the glitter of the snow. The blacksmith stopped with his sacks. He fancied Oksana's voice and thin laughter in the crowd of girls. All the veins in him shuddered: having thrown the sacks on the ground so that the clerk who was at the bottom gasped with a bruise and his head hiccuped at the top of his lungs, he walked with a small sack on his shoulders along with a crowd of young men who followed the maiden crowd, between which he heard a voice Oksana. “So, this is it! stands like a queen and shines with black eyes! A prominent lad tells her something; right, funny, because she laughs. But she always laughs. " As if involuntarily, without understanding how, the blacksmith wiped himself through the crowd and stood beside her. - Ah, Vakula, you are here! Hello! - said the beauty with the same grin that almost drove Vakula crazy. - Well, did you do a lot? Eh, what a small bag! Have you got the skullcaps worn by the queen? get the skullcaps, I'll get married! And, laughing, she ran away with the crowd. The blacksmith stood rooted to the spot in one place. "No I can not; no more strength ... - he said at last. “But my God, why is she so damn good? Her gaze, and her speeches, and everything, well, it burns like this, it burns like that ... No, you can't overpower yourself! It's time to put an end to everything: lose your soul, I will go and drown myself in the forehead, and remember what your name was! " Then he went forward with a decisive step, caught up with the crowd, caught up with Oksana and said in a firm voice: - Goodbye, Oksana! Look for yourself what kind of groom you want, fool whoever you want; but you won't see me anymore in this world. The beauty seemed surprised, she wanted to say something, but the blacksmith waved his hand and ran away. - Where, Vakula? - shouted the boys, seeing the running blacksmith. - Goodbye, brothers! The blacksmith shouted back. - God willing, I'll see you in the next world; and on this we no longer walk together. Goodbye, do not remember dashingly! Tell Father Kondrat to create a memorial service for my sinful soul. Candles for the icons of the Wonderworker and the Mother of God, he is sinful, he did not spoil for worldly affairs. All the good that can be found in my hideout, to the church! Farewell! Having said this, the blacksmith began to run again with the sack on his back. - He's damaged! - said the boys. - Lost soul! - devoutly muttered an old woman passing by. - Go tell how the blacksmith hanged himself! Vakula meanwhile, having run several streets, stopped to catch his breath. “Where am I really going? - he thought, - as if everything had already disappeared. I’ll try another remedy: I’ll go to the Cossack Potato Patsyuk. They say he knows all the devils and will do whatever he wants. I'll go, because my soul still has to disappear! " At the same time, the devil, who had been lying for a long time without any movement, jumped in the sack for joy; but the blacksmith, thinking that he had somehow caught the sack with his hand and made this movement himself, hit the sack with a large fist and, shaking it on his shoulders, went to the Pot-bellied Patsyuk. This Puzaty Patsyuk was definitely a Cossack at one time; but they kicked him out or he himself fled from Zaporozhye, nobody knew that. For a long time already, ten, or perhaps fifteen years, as he lived in Dikanka. At first he lived like a real Zaporozhets: he did not work, slept for three quarters of the day, ate for six mowers and drank almost a whole bucket at a time; however, there was where to fit, because Patsyuk, despite his small stature, was quite weighty in width. Moreover, the trousers that he wore were so wide that no matter how big he took a step, his legs were completely imperceptible, and it seemed that the distillery was moving along the street. Perhaps this is the very reason to call him Pot-bellied. Less than a few days after his arrival in the village, everyone had already learned that he was a medicine man. Was anyone sick with anything, immediately called Patsyuk; and Patsyuk only had to whisper a few words, and the ailment seemed to be removed by hand. Whether it happened that a hungry noble choked on a fish bone, Patsyuk knew how to punch him in the back so skillfully that the bone went where it should go without causing any harm to the noble's throat. Lately he has rarely been seen anywhere. The reason for this was, perhaps, laziness, or perhaps the fact that getting through the door became more difficult for him every year. Then the laity had to go to him themselves, if they needed him. The blacksmith, not without timidity, opened the door and saw Patsyuk, sitting on the floor in a Turkish fashion, in front of a small tub, on which stood a bowl of dumplings. This bowl stood, as if on purpose, on a level with his mouth. Without moving a single finger, he bent his head slightly to the bowl and slurped the slurry, seizing the dumplings with his teeth from time to time. "No, this one," thought Vakula to himself, "is even lazier than Chub: he, at least, eats with a spoon, but this one doesn't even want to raise his hands!" Patsyuk, no doubt, was tightly occupied with dumplings, because, it seemed, he did not notice at all the arrival of the blacksmith, who, barely stepping on the threshold, made a humble bow to him. - I came to your grace, Patsyuk! Vakula said, bowing again. Fat Patsyuk raised his head and began to sip dumplings again. - You, they say, do not be said in anger ... - the blacksmith said, gathering his courage, - I am not talking about this in order to inflict any offense on you, - you have to be a little akin to the devil. Having said these words, Vakula was frightened, thinking that he had still expressed himself bluntly and had softened the strong words a little, and, expecting that Patsyuk, grabbing the tub along with the bowl, would send it straight to his head, he pulled back a little and covered himself with his sleeve so that the hot liquid from the dumplings did not splash his face. But Patsyuk looked and began to sip dumplings again. The emboldened blacksmith decided to continue: - I came to you, Patsyuk, God forbid you everything, every good in contentment, bread in proportion! - The blacksmith sometimes knew how to screw in a fashionable word; in that he became familiar when he was still in Poltava, when he painted a board fence for the centurion. - I have to disappear, a sinner! nothing helps in the world! What will happen, you have to ask for help from the devil himself. Well, Patsyuk? - said the blacksmith, seeing his invariable silence, - what should I do? - When you need the devil, then go to the devil! - answered Patsyuk, without raising his eyes and continuing to remove the dumplings. “That’s why I came to you,” the blacksmith answered, bowing, “except you, I think no one in the world knows the way to him. Patsyuk not a word and finished the rest of the dumplings. - Do mercy, good man, do not refuse! - the blacksmith advised, - whether pork, sausages, buckwheat flour, well, linen, millet or other other things, in case of need ... as is usual among good people ... we will not be stingy. Tell me at least how, roughly speaking, to get on the road to him? “He doesn't need to go far, who has the devil behind him,” Patsyuk said indifferently, without changing his position. Vakula stared at him, as if an explanation of those words had been written on his forehead. "What he says?" - Mina asked him silently; and his half-open mouth was preparing to swallow the first word like a dumpling. But Patsyuk was silent. Then Vakula noticed that there were no dumplings or tubs in front of him; but instead there were two wooden bowls on the floor: one filled with dumplings, the other with sour cream. His thoughts and eyes involuntarily rushed to these dishes. “Let's see,” he said to himself, “how Patsyuk will eat dumplings. He probably won't bend over in order to sip like dumplings, and he can't: you first need to dip the dumplings in sour cream. " As soon as he had time to think this, Patsyuk opened his mouth, looked at the dumplings and opened his mouth even more. At this time, the dumpling spilled out of the bowl, slapped into the sour cream, turned over to the other side, jumped up and just got into his mouth. Patsyuk ate it and opened his mouth again, and the dumpling set off again in the same manner. He only took on the trouble of chewing and swallowing. "See what a miracle!" - thought the blacksmith, his mouth gaping in surprise, and at the same time he noticed that the dumpling was climbing into his mouth, and had already smeared his lips with sour cream. Pushing aside the dumpling and wiping his lips, the blacksmith began to reflect on what miracles happen in the world and to what wisdom the evil spirits bring a person, noticing, moreover, that only Patsyuk can help him. “I will bow to him again, let him interpret it well ... But what the hell! because today hungry kutia, and he eats dumplings, dumplings! What a fool I really am, standing here and typing in sin! Back!" And the pious blacksmith rushed out of the hut. However, the devil, who was sitting in the sack and already rejoicing in advance, could not bear to have such a glorious prey go out of his hands. As soon as the blacksmith lowered the sack, he jumped out of it and sat astride his neck. Frost chipped on the blacksmith's skin; frightened and pale, he did not know what to do; already wanted to cross ... But the devil, tilting his dog's stigma to his right ear, said: - This is me - your friend, I will do everything for a comrade and friend! I'll give you as much money as you want, ”he squeaked in his left ear. “Oksana will be ours today,” he whispered, turning his face back into his right ear. The blacksmith stood thinking. “If you please,” he said at last, “for such a price, I’m ready to be yours!” The devil threw up his hands and began to gallop for joy on the blacksmith's neck. “Now the blacksmith is caught! - he thought to himself, - now I will take out on you, my dear, all your fantasies and fables, cocked into devils! What will my comrades say now when they learn that the most devout man in the whole village is in my hands? " Here the devil laughed with joy, remembering how the whole tailed tribe would tease in hell, how the lame devil, who was considered the first for inventions among them, would rage. - Well, Vakula! - the devil squeaked, still not getting off his neck, as if fearing that he would not run away, - you know that nothing is done without a contract. - I'm ready! - said the blacksmith. - You, I heard, sign in blood; wait, I'll get a nail in my pocket! - Then he put his hand back - and grab the devil's tail. - See, what a joker! - shouted, laughing, the devil. - Well, that's enough, enough to be naughty! - Wait, darling! - shouted the blacksmith, - and this is how it seems to you? - At this word, he created the cross, and the devil became as quiet as a lamb. - Wait, - he said, pulling him by the tail to the ground, - you will know me to teach good people and honest Christians to sin! - Here the blacksmith, without letting go of his tail, jumped on top of him and raised his hand for the sign of the cross. - Have mercy, Vakula! - the devil moaned plaintively, - everything that is necessary for you, I will do everything, only let your soul go to repentance: do not put a terrible cross on me! - Ah, that's how he sang, damn German! Now I know what to do. Carry me this very hour on yourself, do you hear, carry me like a bird! - Where? - said the sad devil. - To Petemburg, right to the queen! And the blacksmith was stunned with fear, feeling himself rising into the air. Oksana stood for a long time, thinking about the strange speeches of the blacksmith. Already inside her, something said that she had done too cruel to him. What if he really does something terrible? “What good! Perhaps, out of grief, he will decide to fall in love with another and, out of vexation, will call her the first beauty in the village? But no, he loves me. I'm so good! He would never change me; he is playing naughty, pretending. In less than ten minutes he will probably come to look at me. I am really tough. You need to give him, as if reluctantly, kiss yourself. He will be delighted! " And the windy beauty was already joking with her friends. - Wait, - said one of them, - the blacksmith forgot his bags; look what terrible bags! He didn’t do it in our way: I think they threw a whole quarter of a ram here; but sausages and breads, it is true, do not count! Luxury! whole holidays can be overeat. - Are these Kuznetsov sacks? - picked up Oksana. “Let's take them to my hut as soon as possible and take a good look at what he put here. All with a laugh approved such a proposal. - But we will not raise them! The whole crowd suddenly shouted, trying to move the bags. - Wait, - said Oksana, - let's run after the sleds and take them on the sleds! And the crowd ran after the sled. The prisoners got very tired of sitting in sacks, despite the fact that the clerk poked a decent hole for himself with his finger. If there were still no people, then perhaps he would have found a means to get out; but to get out of the bag in front of everyone, to show himself to laugh ... this held him back, and he decided to wait, only slightly grunting under Chub's impolite boots. Chub himself no less wished for freedom, feeling that under him lay something on which it was awkward to sit fear. But as soon as he heard the decision of his daughter, he calmed down and did not want to get out, arguing that one had to go to his hut at least a hundred steps, and maybe another. Crawling out, you need to recover, fasten the casing, tie up the belt - how much work! and the droplets remained with Solokha. Better to let the girl go on a sled. But it didn’t happen at all as Chub had expected. At the time when the girls ran after the sled, the thin godfather came out of the shank upset and out of sorts. The shinkarka in no way dared to believe him in debt; he wanted to wait, maybe some pious nobleman would come and treat him; but, as if on purpose, all the nobles stayed at home and, like honest Christians, ate kutya in the midst of their household. Reflecting on the corruption of morals and the wooden heart of a Jewess selling wine, the godfather came across the sacks and stopped in amazement. - See what bags someone threw on the road! - he said, looking around, - there must be pork here too. Happiness climbed to someone to nakoladovat so many things! What a terrible bag! Suppose that they are stuffed with Greek people and cakes, and then good. At least there were some palyanitsy here, and then in shmak: The Jewess gives an octopus of vodka for every lover. Take it away sooner so that no one sees it. - Then he put on his shoulders a sack with Chub and the clerk, but felt that it was too heavy. - No, it will be hard to carry alone, - he said, - but, as if on purpose, the weaver Shapuvalenko is coming. Hello Ostap! “Hello,” the weaver said, stopping.- Where are you going? - And so, I go where my legs go. - Help, good man, to take down the bags! someone was caroling, and even thrown in the middle of the road. We will kindly split in half. - Bags? and what are the bags with, with knishes or palyanitsa? - Yes, I think there is everything. Then they hastily pulled the sticks out of the fence, put the sack on them and carried them on their shoulders. - Where are we taking him? in a shinok? The weaver asked on the way. - It would be and I thought so, to the shinok; but the damned Jewess won't believe, she'll think that she's been stolen somewhere; besides, i just got out of the shank. We will take it to my hut. No one will bother us: the woman is not at home. - Yes, surely not at home? Asked the careful weaver. - Thank God, we are not completely crazy yet, - said the godfather, - the devil would bring me to where she is. She, I think, will drag herself along with women to the light. - Who's there? - shouted the godfather's wife, hearing the noise in the entryway, made by the arrival of two friends with a sack, and opening the door. Kum was dumbfounded. - Here you go! - said the weaver, through his hands. Kum's wife was such a treasure, which there are many in this world. Just like her husband, she almost never sat at home and almost all day crawled with gossips and wealthy old women, praised and ate with great appetite and fought only in the morning with her husband, because at that time she sometimes saw him. Their hut was twice as old as the trousers of the volost clerk, the roof in some places was without straw. Only the remains of the wattle were visible, because anyone who left the house never took sticks for the dogs, in the hope that he would pass by the godfather's garden and pull out any of his wattle fence. The stove was not heated for three days. Everything that the tender spouse begged for from kind people, hid as far as possible from her husband and often arbitrarily took the prey from him if he did not have time to drink it in a shank. Kum, in spite of his usual composure, did not like to yield to her and that is why he almost always left the house with lanterns under both eyes, and the dear half, groaning, trudged to tell the old women about the excesses of her husband and about the beatings she had suffered from him. Now one can imagine how the weaver and the godfather were puzzled by such an unexpected phenomenon. Having lowered the sack, they stepped in with themselves and covered it with the floors; but it was already too late; the godfather's wife, although she saw badly with old eyes, nevertheless noticed the sack. - That is good! She said with an air in which the joy of the hawk was noticeable. - It's good that they have done so much! This is what kind people always do; only no, I think they picked it up somewhere. Show me now, hear, show me your bag this very hour! “The bald devil will show you, not us,” said the godfather, sucking himself up. - Do you care? - said the weaver, - we did the caroling, not you. - No, you will show me, you worthless drunkard! - cried his wife, hitting the tall godfather with a fist in the chin and making his way to the bag. But the weaver and the godfather bravely defended the sack and forced her to back away. No sooner had they recovered than the wife ran out into the hallway, already with a poker in her hands. She nimbly grabbed her husband's hands with the poker, weaving along the back and was already standing next to the sack. - What have we allowed her? - said the weaver, waking up. - Eh, what have we allowed! why did you allow it? - said the godfather coolly. - You have a poker, apparently, iron! - said after a short silence the weaver, scratching his back. - My zhinka bought a poker at the fair last year, gave me beer cops - that nothing ... does not hurt. Meanwhile, the triumphant wife, putting the kaganets on the floor, untied the sack and looked into it. But, surely, her old eyes, which saw the bag so well, were deceived this time. “Eh, there’s a whole boar here! She cried, clapping her hands with joy. - Boar! do you hear, a whole boar! - the weaver godfather pushed. - And it's all your fault! - What can you do! - said the godfather, shrugging his shoulders. - Like what? what are we worth? take away the bag! well, get started! - Go away! let's go! this is our boar! - shouted, speaking, the weaver. - Go, go, you damn woman! this is not your good! - said, approaching, godfather. The wife set to work again at the poker, but at that time Chub got out of the bag and stood in the middle of the passage, stretching like a man who has just awakened from a long sleep. Kumova's wife screamed, hitting the floors with her hands, and everyone involuntarily opened their mouths. - Well, she, a fool, says: a boar! This is not a boar! - said the godfather, widening his eyes. - See what kind of person was thrown into the sack! - said the weaver, backing away from fright. - Say what you want, even crack, and not without evil spirits. After all, he will not get through the window! - This is godfather! - cried, peering, godfather. - Who did you think? - said Chub, grinning. - What, I threw a nice thing over you? I suppose you wanted to eat me instead of pork? Wait, I will please you: there is something else in the bag - if not a wild boar, then probably a pig or some other animal. Something was constantly stirring under me. The weaver and the godfather rushed to the sack, the mistress of the house clung to the opposite side, and the fight would have resumed if the clerk, now seeing that he had nowhere to hide, had not scrambled out of the sack. Kumov's wife, dumbfounded, let go of her leg, for which she began to pull the clerk out of the bag. - Here's another one! - the weaver cried out with fear, - the devil knows how it became in the world ... the head is spinning ... not sausages and not scorches, but people are thrown into sacks! - This is a clerk! - said the most astonished Chub. - Here you go! oh yes Solokha! put in a sack ... That's it, I see, she has a house full of sacks ... Now I know everything: she had two people in each sack. And I thought that she was only for me ... Here is Solokha for you! The girls were a little surprised not to find one bag. "There is nothing to do, it will be with us and this" - babbled Oksana. Everyone took up the sack and loaded it onto the sled. The head decided to be silent, reasoning: if he cries out to be released and untied the sack, the stupid girls will scatter, think that the devil is in the sack, and he will remain on the street, maybe until tomorrow. Meanwhile, the girls, holding hands in unison, flew like a whirlwind, with a sled, across the slippery snow. A lot of them, naughty, sat on the sled; others climbed on the very head. The head decided to demolish everything. Finally they arrived, opened wide the doors in the entryway and the hut, and dragged in the sack with a laugh. - Let's see, something lies here, - everyone shouted, rushing to untie. Here the hiccups, which did not stop tormenting his head all the time he was sitting in the sack, intensified so much that he began to hiccup and cough loudly. - Oh, someone is sitting here! - everyone shouted and in fright rushed out of the door. - What the hell! Where are you rushing about like crazy? - said, entering the door, Chub. - Oh, dad! - said Oksana, - someone is sitting in the bag! - In the bag? where did you get this bag? “The blacksmith threw him in the middle of the road,” everyone said suddenly. “Well, then, didn't I say? ..” - Chub thought to himself. - Why are you scared? let's see. Well, choloviche, I ask you not to be angry that we do not call you by name and fatherland, get out of the bag! The head got out. - Ah! - the girls screamed. “And my head climbed into the same place,” Chub said to himself in bewilderment, measuring it from head to toe. The head itself was no less embarrassed and did not know what to start. - It must be cold outside? - he said, referring to Chub. - There is a frost, - answered Chub. - And let me ask you, what do you lubricate your boots with, lard or tar? He wanted to say something different, he wanted to ask: "How did you, head, got into this bag?" - but he himself did not understand how he uttered something completely different. - Tar is better! - said the head. - Well, goodbye, Chub! - And, pulling on the droplets, left the hut. - Why did I foolishly ask what he smears on his boots! - said Chub, looking at the doors through which the head came out. - Oh yes Solokha! to put such a person in a sack! .. See, you damn woman! And I'm a fool ... but where is that damned bag? - I threw him into the corner, there is nothing else, - said Oksana. - I know these things, there is nothing! submit it here: there is another one sitting there! shake it well ... What, no? See, damn woman! And to look at her is like a saint, as if she never took a modest one in her mouth. But let us leave Chuba pouring out our annoyance at our leisure and return to the blacksmith, because it’s probably already nine o'clock in the yard. At first it seemed scary to Vakula when he rose from the ground to such a height that he could no longer see anything below, and flew like a fly under the very month so that if he had not bent down a little, he would have caught him with his hat. However, a little later, he cheered up and already began to make fun of the devil. He was amused to the extreme by how the devil sneezed and coughed when he removed the cypress cross from his neck and brought it to it. He deliberately raised his hand to scratch his head, and the devil, thinking that they were going to baptize him, flew even faster. Everything was bright above. The air was transparent in a light silver mist. Everything was visible, and even one could notice how a sorcerer swept past them in a whirlwind, sitting in a pot; like the stars, gathered in a heap, played blind man's buff; how a swarm of spirits swirled aside like a cloud; how the devil who danced during the month took off his cap when he saw a blacksmith galloping on horseback; how the broom, returning back, was flying, on which, apparently, the witch had just gone where she needed ... they met a lot of rubbish. Everything, seeing the blacksmith, stopped for a minute to look at him and then again rushed further and continued its own; the blacksmith was flying; and suddenly St. Petersburg shone before him, all in flames. (Then there was illumination for some reason.) The devil, having flown over the barrier, turned into a horse, and the blacksmith saw himself on a dashing runner in the middle of the street. My God! knock, thunder, shine; four-story walls are piled up on both sides; the clatter of the horse's hooves, the sound of the wheels echoed with thunder and echoed from four sides; houses grew and seemed to rise from the ground at every step; the bridges trembled; carriages flew; cabbies, posters shouted; snow whistled under a thousand sledges flying from all sides; pedestrians huddled and crowded under houses, riddled with bowls, and their huge shadows flashed along the walls, reaching their heads up to pipes and roofs. The blacksmith looked around in amazement. It seemed to him that all the houses fixed their innumerable fiery eyes on him and looked. He saw so many gentlemen in fur coats covered with cloth that he did not know who to take off his hat. “My God, how many people are there! - thought the blacksmith. - I think everyone who walks down the street in a fur coat is an assessor, sometimes an assessor! and those who ride in such wonderful carts with glass, those who are not mayors, then, surely, commissars, and maybe even more. " His words were interrupted by the devil's question: "Is it straight to go to the queen?" “No, it's scary,” thought the blacksmith. - Here somewhere, I don’t know, the Zaporozhian Cossacks, who were passing through Dikanka in the fall, landed. They were on their way from the Sich with the papers to the queen; all the same to consult with them. " - Hey, Satan, get into my pocket and lead me to the Cossacks! The devil lost weight in one minute and became so small that he easily got into his pocket. And Vakula did not have time to look around, when he found himself in front of a large house, entered, not knowing how, on the stairs, opened the door and leaned back a little from the glitter, seeing the cleaned room; but he cheered up a little when he recognized the very Zaporozhians who were passing through Dikanka, sitting on silk sofas, tucking their boots smeared with tar under them, and smoking the strongest tobacco, usually called roots. - Hello, Panov! God help you! that's where we saw each other! - said the blacksmith, coming close and bowing to the ground. - What kind of person is there? - asked the one sitting in front of the blacksmith of the other, who was sitting further away. - Didn't you know? - said the blacksmith, - it's me, Vakula, the blacksmith! When we drove through Dikanka in the fall, we passed it, God bless you, all health and longevity, almost two days. And then I put a new tire on the front wheel of your wagon! - A! - said the same Zaporozhets, - this is the same blacksmith who paints importantly. Hello, fellow countryman, why did God bring you? - And so, I wanted to have a look, they say ... - Well, fellow countryman, - the Zaporozhets said, swaying himself, and wanting to show that he can speak Russian too, - what a great city? The blacksmith did not want to disgrace himself and seem like a beginner, moreover, as they had occasion to see above this, he knew the literate language himself. - A noble province! - he answered indifferently. - There is nothing to say: the houses are balish, the pictures are hanging behind the scenes. Many houses are inscribed with gold leaf letters to the extreme. Nothing to say, a wonderful proportion! The Cossacks, having heard the blacksmith, who spoke so freely, drew a conclusion that was very beneficial for him. - After we talk with you, fellow countryman, more; now we are going now to the queen. - To the queen? And be gentle, sir, take me with you! - You? - said the Zaporozhets with the look with which the uncle speaks to his four-year-old pupil, asking him to put him on a real, on a big horse. - What will you do there? No, you can't. - At the same time, a significant mine was expressed on his face. - We, brother, will talk about ours with the queen. - Take it! The blacksmith insisted. - Ask! - he whispered softly to the devil, hitting his pocket with his fist. Before he had time to say this, another Zaporozhets said: - Let's take him, in fact, brothers! - Let's take it! - said others. - Put on the same dress as we do. The blacksmith grabbed to pull on a green zupan, when suddenly the door opened and a man who entered with laces said that it was time to go. It seemed wonderful again to the blacksmith when he rushed in a huge carriage, swaying on springs, when from both sides four-story houses ran back past him and the pavement, it seemed, was rolling under the horses' feet, thundering. “My God, what a light! The blacksmith thought to himself. "It's never so bright here in the daytime." The carriages stopped in front of the palace. The Cossacks went out, entered the magnificent entrance and began to climb the brilliantly lighted staircase. - What a ladder! - the blacksmith whispered to himself, - it's a pity to stomp with your feet. What decorations! Here, they say, fairy tales lie! What the hell are they lying! Oh my God, what a railing! What job! here one iron for fifty rubles went! Having already climbed the stairs, the Cossacks went through the first hall. The blacksmith timidly followed them, fearing to slip on the floor at every step. Three halls passed, the blacksmith was still amazed. Entering the fourth, he involuntarily approached the picture hanging on the wall. It was the Most Pure Virgin with the Baby in her arms. “What a picture! what a wonderful painting! - he reasoned, - now, it seems, he speaks! seems alive! and the Holy Child! and the handles are pressed! and grins, poor! and the paints! My God, what colors! here vokhry, I think, and did not go for a penny, all yar and cormorant: and the blue is still burning! important work! the ground must have been blasted. No matter how amazing these glints, however, this brass handle, - he continued, going up to the door and feeling the lock, - is even more worthy of surprise. What a clean dressing! all this, I think, was done by German blacksmiths for the most expensive prices ... " Perhaps the blacksmith would have argued for a long time if the footman with braids had not pushed him by the arm and reminded him not to lag behind the others. The Cossacks passed two more halls and stopped. Then they were ordered to wait. Several generals in gold-embroidered uniforms were crowded in the hall. The Cossacks bowed in all directions and stood in a heap. A minute later, he entered, accompanied by a whole retinue of majestic growth, a rather stout man in a hetman's uniform, in yellow boots. His hair was disheveled, one eye was slightly crooked, a sort of arrogant majesty was depicted on his face, a habit of command was visible in all movements. All the generals, who paced rather arrogantly in their golden uniforms, fussed about and with low bows, it seemed, were catching his every word and even the slightest movement, so that now they could fly to carry it out. But the hetman did not even pay attention, barely nodded his head and went up to the Cossacks. The Zaporozhian Cossacks all bowed to their feet. - Are you all here? - he asked drawlingly, pronouncing the words a little in the nose. — That all, daddy! - answered the Cossacks, bowing again. - Do you remember to speak the way I taught you? - No, dad, we will not forget. - Is it the king? - asked the blacksmith of one of the Cossacks. - Where are you the king! this is Potemkin himself, - he answered. In another room, voices were heard, and the blacksmith did not know what to do with his eyes from the multitude of ladies who entered in satin dresses with long tails and courtiers in caftans embroidered with gold and with tufts back. He only saw one shine and nothing else. The Cossacks suddenly all fell to the ground and shouted in one voice: - Have mercy, Mom! have mercy! The blacksmith, seeing nothing, stretched himself out with all his zeal on the floor. “Stand up,” a commanding and at the same time pleasant voice sounded over them. Some of the courtiers fussed and pushed the Cossacks. - Let's not get up, Mom! we will not get up! let us die, but not rise! - shouted the Cossacks. Potemkin bit his lip, finally approached himself and whispered imperiously to one of the Cossacks. The Cossacks got up. Then the blacksmith dared to raise his head and saw a short woman standing in front of him, somewhat stout, powdered, with blue eyes and at the same time a majestically smiling look, who was so able to conquer everything and could only belong to one reigning woman. “His Serene Highness promised to introduce me today to my people, whom I have not yet seen,” said the lady with blue eyes, examining the Cossacks with curiosity. - Are you well kept here? - she continued, coming closer. — Thank you, mom! They give good food, although the local sheep are not at all what we have in Zaporozhye - why not live somehow? .. Potemkin winced, seeing that the Zaporozhian Cossacks were speaking completely different from what he taught them ... One of the Zaporozhian Cossacks stepped forward, dumbfounded: - Have mercy, Mom! Why are you destroying the faithful people? what made you angry? Did we hold the hand of a filthy Tatar; did they agree on anything with Turchin; have you betrayed you in deed or in thought? For what disgrace? Before we heard that you order to build fortresses from us everywhere; after hearing what you want turn into carabinieri; now we hear new misfortunes. What is the fault of the Zaporozhye army? Is it the one that transferred your army through Perekop and helped your generals to chop off the Crimeans? .. Potemkin was silent and carelessly brushed his diamonds with a small brush, with which his hands were decked. - What do you want? - Catherine asked carefully. The Cossacks looked at each other significantly. “Now is the time! The queen asks what you want! " The blacksmith said to himself and suddenly fell to the ground. - Your royal majesty, do not order to be executed, order to have mercy! From what, if not in anger be told to your royal favor, the slivers are made, what is on your feet? I think that not a single Swiss in any country in the world will be able to do this. My God, what if my wife had put on such slippers! The Empress laughed. The courtiers laughed too. Potemkin frowned and smiled together. The Cossacks began to push the blacksmith's arm, wondering if he had lost his mind. - Get up! - said the Empress affectionately. - If you so want to have such shoes, then it is not difficult to do. Bring him the most expensive shoes with gold right now! Indeed, I really like this innocence! Here you are, ”the empress continued, fixing her eyes on a man standing a little further away from the other middle-aged man with a plump but somewhat pale face, whom a modest caftan with large mother-of-pearl buttons showed that he did not belong to the court,“ an object worthy of your witty pen! “You, your imperial majesty, are too merciful. You need at least La Fontaine here! - answered, bowing, the man with mother-of-pearl buttons. “I’ll tell you on honor: I am still unconscious of your“ Brigadier ”. You read surprisingly well! However, - continued the empress, turning again to the Cossacks, - I heard that you will never marry in the Sich. — Yak, mom! after all, you know yourself, a man cannot live without a zhinka, '' answered the same Zaporozhets who talked with the blacksmith, and the blacksmith was surprised to hear that this Zaporozhets, knowing such a well-literate language, spoke to the tsarina, as if on purpose, in the most rude, usually called the muzhik dialect. “Sly people! - he thought to himself, - it’s true, he’s doing it for a reason. ” - We are not blacks, - the Zaporozhets continued, - but sinful people. Loads, like all honest Christianity, until soon. We have quite a few of those who have wives, just do not live with them in the Setch. There are those who have wives in Poland; there are those who have wives in Ukraine; there are those who have wives in Treshchina. At this time the shoes were brought to the blacksmith. - My God, what a decoration! He cried out happily, grabbing his shoes. - Your royal majesty! Well, when the shoes are so on your feet, and it is aspirational in them, your honor, walk on the ice trick, what should be the very legs? I think at least pure sugar. The Empress, who certainly had the most slender and charming legs, could not help smiling when she heard such a compliment from the lips of an innocent blacksmith, who in his Zaporozhye dress could be considered handsome, despite his swarthy face. Delighted with such benevolent attention, the blacksmith was about to ask the queen well about everything: is it true that the kings eat only honey and lard, and the like; but, feeling that the Cossacks were pushing him under his sides, he decided to shut up; and when the empress, turning to the old people, began to ask how they live in the Sich, what customs are found, he, stepping back, bent down to his pocket, said quietly: "Get me out of here quickly!" - and suddenly found himself behind the barrier. - Drowned! By God, he drowned! so that I do not leave this place, if I do not drown! - babbled a fat weaver, standing in a heap of Dikan women in the middle of the street. - Well, am I what a liar? did I steal a cow from someone? have I jinxed someone that they have no faith in me? - shouted a woman in a Cossack scroll, with a purple nose, waving her arms. - So that I would not want to drink water, if the old Pepperchikha did not see with her own eyes how the blacksmith hanged himself! - The blacksmith hanged himself? here you go! - Said the head, coming out of Chub, stopped and squeezed closer to those who were talking. - Better tell you not to want to drink vodka, old drunkard! - answered the weaver, - you have to be as crazy as you to hang yourself! He drowned! drowned in the forehead! I know this as well as the fact that you were now at the shank. - Shit! See, what did you reproach with? - angrily objected a woman with a purple nose. - Would be silent, you scoundrel! Don't I know that the clerk comes to see you every evening? The weaver flushed. - What a clerk? to whom is the clerk? what are you lying? - Sexton? - sang, crowding to the arguing, the clerk's wife, in a sheepskin coat made of hare fur, covered with blue Chinese. - I'll let the clerk know! Who says this - a clerk? - But who does the clerk go to! Said a woman with a purple nose, pointing to the weaver. - So it's you, bitch, - said the clerk's wife, approaching the weaver, - is it you, the witch, fogging him up and giving him an unclean potion to come to you? Get rid of me, Satan! The weaver said, backing away. - See, damned witch, so that you do not wait for your children to see, you worthless! Ugh! .. - Here the deacon spat right in the eyes of the weaver. The weaver wanted to do the same for herself, but instead spat in her unshaven beard on her head, which, in order to hear everything better, crept up to the arguing themselves. “Oh, you nasty woman! - shouted the head, wiping his hollow face and raising the whip. This movement made everyone run wild with curses in different directions. - What an abomination! He repeated, continuing to wipe himself off. - So the blacksmith drowned! My God, what an important painter he was! what strong knives, sickles, plows he knew how to forge! What a power it was! Yes, - he continued, thinking, - there are few such people in our village. That is why I, while still sitting in the accursed sack, noticed that the poor thing was deeply out of sorts. So much for the blacksmith! was, and now not! And I was going to shoe my pockmarked mare! .. And, being full of such Christian thoughts, his head quietly wandered into his hut. Oksana was embarrassed when such news reached her. She had little faith in the eyes of Pepperchikha and the rumors of the women; she knew that the blacksmith was devout enough to dare to destroy his soul. But what if he really left with the intention of never returning to the village? And hardly anywhere else where there is such a fellow as a blacksmith! He loved her so much! He endured her whims the longest! The beauty all night under her blanket turned from right to left, from left to right - and could not sleep. Then, dispersed in the enchanting nakedness, which the darkness of the night hid even from herself, she scolded herself almost aloud; then, having calmed down, she decided not to think about anything - and kept thinking. And everything was on fire; and by morning fell head over heels in love with the blacksmith. Chub expressed neither joy nor sadness about Vakula's fate. His thoughts were occupied with one thing: he could not forget Solokha's treachery and the sleepy one did not stop scolding her. Morning has come. The whole church was full of people even before the world. Elderly women in white namitki, in white cloth scrolls devoutly baptized themselves at the very entrance of the church. Noblewomen in green and yellow sweaters, and others even in blue kuntushi with gold backs and mustaches, stood in front of them. The girls, who had a whole shop of ribbons on their heads, and monists, crosses and ducats on their necks, tried to get even closer to the iconostasis. But in front of everyone there were nobles and simple peasants with mustaches, with forelocks, with thick necks and freshly shaved chins, more and more in kobenyaks, from under which a white scroll appeared, and in others a blue scroll. On all faces, wherever they looked, a holiday was visible. His head licked his lips, imagining how he would break his fast with sausage; the girls were thinking about how they would mess with the lads on ice; the old women whispered prayers more diligently than ever. Throughout the church one could hear the Cossack Sverbyguz bowing down. Only Oksana stood as if she were not one of her own: she prayed and did not pray. Her heart was crowded with so many different feelings, one more annoying than the other, one more sad than the other, that her face expressed only strong embarrassment; tears trembled in my eyes. The girls could not understand the reasons for this and did not suspect that the blacksmith was to blame. However, not only Oksana was busy with the blacksmith. All the laymen noticed that the holiday was as if not a holiday; as if all something is missing. As unfortunate as it was, the clerk, after traveling in a sack, became hoarse and rattled in a barely audible voice; it is true that the visiting singing singer took the bass nicely, but it would be much better if there was a blacksmith, who always, as soon as they sang "Our Father" or "Cherubims," ​​climbed on the wing and brought out from there the same melody as they sing and in Poltava. In addition, he alone corrected the position of the church title. Matins have already departed; after matins the mass departed ... where, in fact, has the blacksmith gone? The devil and the blacksmith rushed back even faster the rest of the night. And in a moment Vakula found himself near his hut. At this time the cock crowed. "Where? - he shouted, grabbing the tail of the devil who wanted to run away, - wait, buddy, that's not all: I have not thanked you yet. Then, grabbing a twig, he gave him three blows, and the poor devil started to run like a peasant who had just been vaporized by the assessor. So, instead of leading, seducing and fooling others, the enemy of the human race was himself fooled. After that, Vakula entered the canopy, buried himself in the hay and slept until lunchtime. When he woke up, he was frightened when he saw that the sun was already high: "I slept through Matins and Mass!" Here the pious blacksmith plunged into despondency, arguing that it was true that God deliberately, as punishment for his sinful intention to destroy his soul, sent a dream that did not even allow him to attend such a solemn holiday in church. But, nevertheless, having reassured himself that next week he would confess in this priest and from this day he would begin to beat fifty bows in the whole year, he looked into the hut; but there was no one in it. Apparently Solokha has not returned yet. He carefully took his shoes out of his bosom and was again amazed at the expensive work and the wonderful incident of the previous night; washed, dressed as best as possible, put on the same dress that he got from the Cossacks, took out of the chest a new hat of Reshelyov's hats with a blue top, which he had never worn since the time he had bought it when he was in Poltava; he also took out a new belt of all colors; put it all together with the whip in a handkerchief and went straight to Chub. Chub goggled his eyes when the blacksmith came in, and did not know what to wonder: whether that the blacksmith was resurrected, that the blacksmith dared to come to him, or that he was dressed up as such a dandy and Cossack. But he was even more amazed when Vakula untied his handkerchief and put in front of him a brand new hat and belt, which had not been seen in the whole village, and he fell at his feet and said in an imploring voice: - Have mercy, dad! do not be angry! here's a whip for you: hit it as much as your heart desires, I surrender myself; I repent of everything; beat, but do not be angry only! You once fraternized with the deceased dad, ate bread and salt together and drank the magarych. Chub saw, not without secret pleasure, how the blacksmith, who did not blow his mustache to anyone in the village, was bending nickels and horseshoes in his hand like buckwheat pancakes, the same blacksmith lying at his feet. In order not to drop himself even more, Chub took the whip and hit him three times on the back. - Well, it will be with you, get up! always listen to old people! Let's forget everything that was between us! Well, now tell me, what do you want? - Give it back, dad, Oksana for me! Chub thought a little, looked at the cap and belt: the cap was wonderful, the belt was also not inferior to it; remembered the treacherous Solokha and said resolutely: — Good! Send matchmakers! - Ay! - Oksana screamed, stepping over the threshold and seeing the blacksmith, and stared with amazement and joy into his eyes. - Look at the slivers I brought you! - said Vakula, - the ones worn by the queen. - No! No! I don't need chereviks! - she said, waving her hands and not taking her eyes off him, - I am without the chereviks ... - Then she did not finish and blushed. The blacksmith came closer, took her hand; the beauty lowered her eyes. She has never been so wonderfully good. The delighted blacksmith kissed her softly, and her face lit up more and more, and she became even better. He drove through Dikanka of the blessed memory of the bishop, praised the place where the village stands, and, driving along the street, stopped in front of a new hut. - Whose is this painted hut? - asked the bishop at a beautiful woman standing near the door with a child in her arms. “Blacksmith Vakula,” Oksana told him, bowing, because it was she. - Nice! nice job! - said the Right Reverend, looking at the doors and windows. And the windows were all circled in red; on the doors, there were Cossacks on horseback everywhere, with pipes in their teeth. But the Right Reverend Vakula praised him even more when he learned that he had endured church repentance and freely painted the entire left wing with green paint with red flowers. This, however, is not all: on the side wall, as you enter the church, Vakula painted the devil in hell, so disgusting that everyone spat when they passed by; and the women, as soon as the child burst into tears in their arms, brought him to the picture and said: "He bach, yak kaka is painted!"- and the child, holding the tears, looked askance at the picture and pressed against the breast of its mother.

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol

Christmas Eve

The stories of the old beekeeper

It's a clear, frosty night before Christmas. The stars and the moon are shining, the snow is sparkling, smoke is curling over the chimneys of the huts. This is Dikanka, a tiny village near Poltava. Let's look through the windows? There the old Cossack Chub put on a sheepskin coat and is going to visit. There is his daughter, the beautiful Oksana, preening herself in front of a mirror. Vaughn flies into the chimney, the charming witch Solokha, a hospitable hostess, to whom both the Cossack Chub, the village head, and the clerk love to visit. And over there, in that hut, on the edge of the village, an old man sits puffing on a cradle. Why, this is the beekeeper Rudy Panko, a master of storytelling! One of his funniest stories is about how the devil stole a month from the sky, and the blacksmith Vakula flew to Petersburg to see the tsarina.

All of them - both Solokh, and Oksana, and the blacksmith, and even Rudy Panka himself - were invented by the wonderful writer Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol (18091852), and there is nothing extraordinary in the fact that he so accurately and truthfully managed to portray his heroes. Gogol was born in the small village of Velyki Sorochintsy, Poltava province, and from childhood he saw and knew everything that he later wrote about. His father was a landowner and came from an old Cossack family. Nikolai studied first at the Poltava district school, then at the gymnasium in the city of Nizhyn, also not far from Poltava; it was here that he first tried to write.

At the age of nineteen, Gogol left for St. Petersburg, served for some time in the offices, but very soon realized that this was not his calling. He began to print little by little in literary journals, and a little later published the first book "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka" - a collection amazing stories, as if told by the beekeeper Rudy Pank: about the devil who stole the month, about the mysterious red scroll, about the rich treasures that open on the night before Ivan Kupala. The collection was a huge success, and Alexander Pushkin liked it very much. Gogol soon met him and made friends, and in the future, Pushkin helped him more than once, for example, prompting (of course, in the most general outline) the plot of the comedy "The Inspector General" and the poem "Dead Souls". While living in St. Petersburg, Gogol published the next collection "Mirgorod", which included "Taras Bulba" and "Viy", and "Petersburg" stories: "Overcoat", "Carriage", "Nose" and others.

Nikolai Vasilievich spent the next ten years abroad, only occasionally returning to his homeland: little by little he lived in Germany, then in Switzerland, then in France; later he settled in Rome for several years, which he fell in love with very much. The first volume of the poem "Dead Souls" was written here. Gogol returned to Russia only in 1848 and settled at the end of his life in Moscow, in a house on Nikitsky Boulevard.

Gogol is a very versatile writer, his works are so different, but they are united by their wit, subtle irony and good humor. For this, Gogol and Pushkin most of all appreciated: “This is real fun, sincere, unconstrained, without pretense, without stiffness. And in some places what poetry! What sensitivity! All this is so extraordinary in our current literature ... "

P. Lemeni-Macedon

The last day before Christmas is over. Winter, clear night has come. The stars looked. The month majestically ascended to heaven to shine a light on good people and the whole world, so that everyone would have fun caroling and praising Christ. The frost was stronger than in the morning; but on the other hand it was so quiet that the cry of frost under the boot could be heard half a mile away. Not a single crowd of lads has yet appeared under the windows of the huts; for a month I was only peeking into them furtively, as if causing the girls who were dressing up to run out into the skiddy snow as soon as possible. Then smoke poured through the chimney of one hut in clouds and went like a cloud across the sky, and together with the smoke a witch rose astride a broomstick.

If at this time the Sorochinsky assessor was passing by on a troika of common horses, in a hat with a lamb band, made in the style of an Uhlan, in a blue sheepskin coat lined with black smushki, with a devilishly woven whip, which he has the habit of urging his driver on, he would, , noticed her, because not a single witch in the world escapes from the Sorochin assessor. He knows in every way how many pigs each woman has, and how many canvases are in the chest, and what exactly from his dress and household a good man will lay on Sunday in a shank. But the Sorochinsky assessor did not pass, and what does he care about strangers, he has his own volost. And the witch, meanwhile, rose so high that she glimmered above with only one black speck. But wherever a speck appeared, there the stars, one after another, disappeared in the sky. Soon the witch pulled on their full sleeve. Three or four were still shining. Suddenly, from the opposite side, another speck appeared, increased, began to stretch, and there was no longer a speck. A short-sighted man, at least put on his nose instead of glasses wheels from Komissarov's chaise, and then he would not have recognized what it is. The front was completely German: narrow, constantly twirling and sniffing everything that came across, the muzzle ended, like our pigs, with a round snout, the legs were so thin that if the jareskov's head had such, he would have broken them in the first goat. But on the back he was a real provincial solicitor in a uniform, because he had a tail hanging as sharp and long as the current uniform coat-tails; only by the goat beard under the muzzle, by the small horns sticking out on his head, and that he was not whiter than a chimney sweep, one could guess that he was not a German and not a provincial solicitor, but simply a devil, who was left to stagger in the white world last night and teach the sins of good people. Tomorrow, with the first bells for matins, he will run without looking back, tail between his legs, to his den.

Meanwhile, the devil crept slowly towards a month and was about to reach out to grab him, but suddenly he pulled it back, as if burned, sucked his fingers, swinging his foot and ran from the other side, and again jumped back and jerked his hand away. However, despite all the failures, the cunning devil did not leave his mischief. Running up, he suddenly grabbed a month with both hands, grimacing and blowing, throwing it from one hand to the other, like a peasant who brought fire with his bare hands for his cradle; at last he hastily put it in his pocket and, as if he had never been in anything, ran on.

In Dikanka, no one heard how the devil stole a month. True, the volost clerk, getting out of the shank on all fours, saw that he had been dancing in heaven for no reason at all, and assured the whole village with God; but the laity shook their heads and even laughed at him. But what was the reason for the devil to decide on such a lawless deed? And here's what: he knew that the rich Cossack Chub was invited by the clerk to the kutya, where they would be: head; a clerk's relative in a blue frock coat who came from the Bishop's singing clerk, who sang the lowest bass; Cossack Sverbyguz and some others; where, in addition to kutya, there will be varenukha, vodka distilled for saffron and a lot of everything edible. And meanwhile, his daughter, a beauty in the whole village, will stay at home, and a blacksmith, a strong man and a fellow at any place, will probably come to her daughter, who was devilishly repugnant to the sermons of Father Kondrat. In his leisure time, the blacksmith was engaged in painting and was known as the best painter in the whole neighborhood. The centurion himself, who was still alive at that time ... called him on purpose to Poltava to paint a board fence near his house. All the bowls from which the Dikan Cossacks sipped borscht were painted by a blacksmith. The blacksmith was a God-fearing man and often wrote images of saints: even now you can still find in T ... the church of his evangelist Luke. But the triumph of his art was one painting painted on the church wall in the right narthex, in which he depicted Saint Peter on the day of the Last Judgment, with keys in his hands, driving out the evil spirit from hell; the frightened devil rushed about in all directions, anticipating his death, and the previously imprisoned sinners beat and drove him with whips, logs and everything else. While the painter was working on this picture and writing it on a large wooden board, the devil did his best to interfere with him: he pushed invisibly under his arm, lifted ash from the furnace in the smithy and sprinkled it on the picture; but, in spite of everything, the work was over, the board was brought into the church and embedded in the wall of the narthex, and from that time the devil vowed to take revenge on the blacksmith.