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"'You don't seem to be ready for death just at present,' I said to him:
'you wish to have your breakfast; I do not wish to hinder you.'

"'You are not hindering me in the least,' replied he. 'Have the goodness
to fire, or just as you please--the shot remains yours; I shall always
be ready at your service.'

"I turned to the seconds, informing them that I had no intention of
firing that day, and with that the duel came to an end.

"I resigned my commission and retired to this little place. Since then
not a day has passed that I have not thought of revenge. And now my hour
has arrived."

Silvio took from his pocket the letter that he had received that
morning, and gave it to me to read. Some one (it seemed to be his
business agent) wrote to him from Moscow, that a CERTAIN PERSON was
going to be married to a young and beautiful girl.

"You can guess," said Silvio, "who the certain person is. I am going to
Moscow. We shall see if he will look death in the face with as much
indifference now, when he is on the eve of being married, as he did once
with his cherries!"

With these words, Silvio rose, threw his cap upon the floor, and began
pacing up and down the room like a tiger in his cage. I had listened to
him in silence; strange conflicting feelings agitated me.

The servant entered and announced that the horses were ready. Silvio
grasped my hand tightly, and we embraced each other. He seated himself
in his telega, in which lay two trunks, one containing his pistols, the
other his effects. We said good-bye once more, and the horses galloped
off.




CHAPTER II.


Several years passed, and family circumstances compelled me to settle in
the poor little village of M---. Occupied with agricultural pursuits, I
ceased not to sigh in secret for my former noisy and careless life. The
most difficult thing of all was having to accustom myself to passing the
spring and winter evenings in perfect solitude. Until the hour for
dinner I managed to pass away the time somehow or other, talking with
the bailiff, riding about to inspect the work, or going round to look at
the new buildings; but as soon as it began to get dark, I positively did
not know what to do with myself. The few books that I had found in the
cupboards and storerooms I already knew by heart. All the stories that
my housekeeper Kirilovna could remember I had heard over and over again.
The songs of the peasant women made me feel depressed. I tried drinking
spirits, but it made my head ache; and moreover, I confess I was afraid
of becoming a drunkard from mere chagrin, that is to say, the saddest
kind of drunkard, of which I had seen many examples in our district.

I had no near neighbors, except two or three topers, whose conversation
consisted for the most part of hiccups and sighs. Solitude was
preferable to their society. At last I decided to go to bed as early as
possible, and to dine as late as possible; in this way I shortened the
evening and lengthened out the day, and I found that the plan answered
very well.

Four versts from my house was a rich estate belonging to the Countess
B---; but nobody lived there except the steward. The Countess had only
visited her estate once, in the first year of her married life, and then
she had remained there no longer than a month. But in the second spring
of my hermitical life a report was circulated that the Countess, with
her husband, was coming to spend the summer on her estate. The report
turned out to be true, for they arrived at the beginning of June.

The arrival of a rich neighbor is an important event in the lives of
country people. The landed proprietors and the people of their
households talk about it for two months beforehand and for three years
afterwards. As for me, I must confess that the news of the arrival of a
young and beautiful neighbor affected me strongly. I burned with
impatience to see her, and the first Sunday after her arrival I set out
after dinner for the village of A---, to pay my respects to the Countess
and her husband, as their nearest neighbor and most humble servant. A
lackey conducted me into the Count's study, and then went to announce
me. The spacious apartment was furnished with every possible luxury.
Around the walls were cases filled with books and surmounted by bronze
busts; over the marble mantelpiece was a large mirror; on the floor was
a green cloth covered with carpets. Unaccustomed to luxury in my own
poor corner, and not having seen the wealth of other people for a long
time, I awaited the appearance of the Count with some little
trepidation, as a suppliant from the provinces awaits the arrival of the
minister. The door opened, and a handsome-looking man, of about thirty-
two years of age, entered the room. The Count approached me with a frank
and friendly air; I endeavored to be self-possessed and began to
introduce myself, but he anticipated me. We sat down. His conversation,
which was easy and agreeable, soon dissipated my awkward bashfulness;
and I was already beginning to recover my usual composure, when the
Countess suddenly entered, and I became more confused than ever. She was
indeed beautiful. The Count presented me. I wished to appear at ease,
but the more I tried to assume an air of unconstraint, the more awkward
I felt. They, in order to give me time to recover myself and to become
accustomed to my new acquaintances, began to talk to each other,
treating me as a good neighbor, and without ceremony. Meanwhile, I
walked about the room, examining the books and pictures. I am no judge
of pictures, but one of them attracted my attention. It represented some
view in Switzerland, but it was not the painting that struck me, but the
circumstance that the canvas was shot through by two bullets, one
planted just above the other.

"A good shot that!" said I, turning to the Count.

"Yes," replied he, "a very remarkable shot. . . . Do you shoot well?" he
continued.

"Tolerably," replied I, rejoicing that the conversation had turned at
last upon a subject that was familiar to me. "At thirty paces I can
manage to hit a card without fail,--I mean, of course, with a pistol
that I am used to."

"Really?" said the Countess, with a look of the greatest interest. "And
you, my dear, could you hit a card at thirty paces?"

"Some day," replied the Count, "we will try. In my time I did not shoot
badly, but it is now four years since I touched a pistol."

"Oh!" I observed, "in that case, I don't mind laying a wager that Your
Excellency will not hit the card at twenty paces; the pistol demands
practice every day. I know that from experience. In our regiment I was
reckoned one of the best shots. It once happened that I did not touch a
pistol for a whole month, as I had sent mine to be mended; and would you
believe it, Your Excellency, the first time I began to shoot again, I
missed a bottle four times in succession at twenty paces. Our captain, a
witty and amusing fellow, happened to be standing by, and he said to me:
'It is evident, my friend, that your hand will not lift itself against
the bottle.' No, Your Excellency, you must not neglect to practise, or
your hand will soon lose its cunning. The best shot that I ever met used
to shoot at least three times every day before dinner. It was as much
his custom to do this as it was to drink his daily glass of brandy."

The Count and Countess seemed pleased that I had begun to talk.

"And what sort of a shot was he?" asked the Count.

"Well, it was this way with him, Your Excellency: if he saw a fly settle
on the wall--you smile, Countess, but, before Heaven, it is the truth--
if he saw a fly, he would call out: 'Kouzka, my pistol!' Kouzka would
bring him a loaded pistol--bang! and the fly would be crushed against
the wall."

"Wonderful!" said the Count. "And what was his name?"

"Silvio, Your Excellency."

"Silvio!" exclaimed the Count, starting up. "Did you know Silvio?"

"How could I help knowing him, Your Excellency: we were intimate
friends; he was received in our regiment like a brother officer, but it
is now five years since I had any tidings of him. Then Your Excellency
also knew him?"

"Oh, yes, I knew him very well. Did he ever tell you of one very strange
incident in his life?"

"Does Your Excellency refer to the slap in the face that he received
from some blackguard at a ball?"

"Did he tell you the name of this blackguard?"

"No, Your Excellency, he never mentioned his name, . . . Ah! Your
Excellency!" I continued, guessing the truth: "pardon me . . . I did not
know . . . could it really have been you?"

"Yes, I myself," replied the Count, with a look of extraordinary
agitation; "and that bullet-pierced picture is a memento of our last
meeting."

"Ah, my dear," said the Countess, "for Heaven's sake, do not speak about
that; it would be too terrible for me to listen to."

"No," replied the Count: "I will relate everything. He knows how I
insulted his friend, and it is only right that he should know how Silvio
revenged himself."

The Count pushed a chair towards me, and with the liveliest interest I
listened to the following story:

"Five years ago I got married. The first month--the honeymoon--I spent
here, in this village. To this house I am indebted for the happiest
moments of my life, as well as for one of its most painful recollections.

"One evening we went out together for a ride on horseback. My wife's
horse became restive; she grew frightened, gave the reins to me, and
returned home on foot. I rode on before. In the courtyard I saw a
travelling carriage, and I was told that in my study sat waiting for me
a man, who would not give his name, but who merely said that he had
business with me. I entered the room and saw in the darkness a man,
covered with dust and wearing a beard of several days' growth. He was
standing there, near the fireplace. I approached him, trying to remember
his features.

"'You do not recognize me, Count?' said he, in a quivering voice.

"'Silvio!' I cried, and I confess that I felt as if my hair had suddenly
stood on end.

"'Exactly,' continued he. 'There is a shot due to me, and I have come to
discharge my pistol. Are you ready?'

"His pistol protruded from a side pocket. I measured twelve paces and
took my stand there in that corner, begging him to fire quickly, before
my wife arrived. He hesitated, and asked for a light. Candles were
brought in. I closed the doors, gave orders that nobody was to enter,
and again begged him to fire. He drew out his pistol and took aim. . . .
I counted the seconds. . . . I thought of her. . . . A terrible minute
passed! Silvio lowered his hand.

"'I regret,' said he, 'that the pistol is not loaded with cherry-
stones . . . the bullet is heavy. It seems to me that this is not a duel,
but a murder. I am not accustomed to taking aim at unarmed men. Let us
begin all over again; we will cast lots as to who shall fire first.'

"My head went round. . . . I think I raised some objection. . . . At last
we loaded another pistol, and rolled up two pieces of paper. He placed
these latter in his cap--the same through which I had once sent a
bullet--and again I drew the first number.

"'You are devilish lucky, Count,' said he, with a smile that I shall
never forget.

"I don't know what was the matter with me, or how it was that he managed
to make me do it . . . but I fired and hit that picture."

The Count pointed with his finger to the perforated picture; his face
glowed like fire; the Countess was whiter than her own handkerchief; and
I could not restrain an exclamation.

"I fired," continued the Count, "and, thank Heaven, missed my aim. Then
Silvio . . . at that moment he was really terrible . . . Silvio raised his
hand to take aim at me. Suddenly the door opens, Masha rushes into the
room, and with a loud shriek throws herself upon my neck. Her presence
restored to me all my courage.

"'My dear,' said I to her, 'don't you see that we are joking? How
frightened you are! Go and drink a glass of water and then come back to
us; I will introduce you to an old friend and comrade.'

"Masha still doubted.

"'Tell me, is my husband speaking the truth?' said she, turning to the
terrible Silvio: 'is it true that you are only joking?'

"'He is always joking, Countess,' replied Silvio: 'once he gave me a
slap in the face in a joke; on another occasion he sent a bullet through
my cap in a joke; and just now, when he fired at me and missed me, it
was all in a joke. And now I feel inclined for a joke.'

"With these words he raised his pistol to take aim at me--right before
her! Masha threw herself at his feet.

"'Rise, Masha; are you not ashamed!' I cried in a rage: 'and you, sir,
will you cease to make fun of a poor woman? Will you fire or not?'

"'I will not,' replied Silvio: 'I am satisfied. I have seen your
confusion, your alarm. I forced you to fire at me. That is sufficient.
You will remember me. I leave you to your conscience.'

"Then he turned to go, but pausing in the doorway, and looking at the
picture that my shot had passed through, he fired at it almost without
taking aim, and disappeared. My wife had fainted away; the servants did
not venture to stop him, the mere look of him filled them with terror.
He went out upon the steps, called his coachman, and drove off before I
could recover myself."

The Count was silent. In this way I learned the end of the story, whose
beginning had once made such a deep impression upon me. The hero of it I
never saw again. It is said that Silvio commanded a detachment of
Hetairists during the revolt under Alexander Ipsilanti, and that he was
killed in the battle of Skoulana.






ST. JOHN'S EVE

BY

NIKOLAI VASILIEVITCH GOGOL


From "St. John's Eve." Translated by Isabel F. Hapgood.

1886

[Footnote: This is one of the stories from the celebrated volume
entitled "Tales at a Farmhouse near Dikanka."]


(RELATED BY THE SACRISTAN OF THE DIKANKA CHURCH)




Thoma Grigorovitch had a very strange sort of eccentricity: to the day
of his death he never liked to tell the same thing twice. There were
times when, if you asked him to relate a thing afresh, behold, he would
interpolate new matter, or alter it so that it was impossible to
recognize it. Once on a time, one of those gentlemen (it is hard for us
simple people to put a name to them, to say whether they are scribblers
or not scribblers: but it is just the same thing as the usurers at our
yearly fairs; they clutch and beg and steal every sort of frippery, and
issue mean little volumes, no thicker than an ABC book, every month, or
even every week),--one of these gentlemen wormed this same story out of
Thoma Grigorovitch, and he completely forgot about it. But that same
young gentleman in the pea-green caftan, whom I have mentioned, and one
of whose Tales you have already read, I think, came from Poltava,
bringing with him a little book, and, opening it in the middle, shows it
to us. Thoma Grigorovitch was on the point of setting his spectacles
astride of his nose, but recollected that he had forgotten to wind
thread about them, and stick them together with wax, so he passed it
over to me. As I understand something about reading and writing, and do
not wear spectacles, I undertook to read it. I had not turned two
leaves, when all at once he caught me by the hand, and stopped me.

"Stop! tell me first what you are reading."

I confess that I was a trifle stunned by such a question.

"What! what am I reading, Thoma Grigorovitch? These were your very
words."

"Who told you that they were my words?"

"Why, what more would you have? Here it is printed: RELATED BY SUCH AND
SUCH A SACRISTAN."

"Spit on the head of the man who printed that! he lies, the dog of a
Moscow pedler! Did I say that? 'TWAS JUST THE SAME AS THOUGH ONE HADN'T
HIS WITS ABOUT HIM. Listen. I'll tell it to you on the spot."

We moved up to the table, and he began.

* * * *

My grandfather (the kingdom of heaven be his! may he eat only wheaten
rolls and makovniki [FOOTNOTE: Poppy-seeds cooked in honey, and dried in
square cakes.] with honey in the other world!) could tell a story
wonderfully well. When he used to begin on a tale, you wouldn't stir
from the spot all day, but keep on listening. He was no match for the
story-teller of the present day, when he begins to lie, with a tongue as
though he had had nothing to eat for three days, so that you snatch your
cap and flee from the house. As I now recall it,--my old mother was
alive then,--in the long winter evenings when the frost was crackling
out of doors, and had so sealed up hermetically the narrow panes of our
cottage, she used to sit before the hackling-comb, drawing out a long
thread in her hand, rocking the cradle with her foot, and humming a
song, which I seem to hear even now.

The fat-lamp, quivering and flaring up as though in fear of something,
lighted us within our cottage; the spindle hummed; and all of us
children, collected in a cluster, listened to grandfather, who had not
crawled off the oven for more than five years, owing to his great age.
But the wondrous tales of the incursions of the Zaporozhian Cossacks,
the Poles, the bold deeds of Podkova, of Poltor-Kozhukh, and
Sagaidatchnii, did not interest us so much as the stories about some
deed of old which always sent a shiver through our frames, and made our
hair rise upright on our heads. Sometimes such terror took possession of
us in consequence of them, that, from that evening on, Heaven knows what
a marvel everything seemed to us. If you chance to go out of the cottage
after nightfall for anything, you imagine that a visitor from the other
world has lain down to sleep in your bed; and I should not be able to
tell this a second time were it not that I had often taken my own smock,
at a distance, as it lay at the head of the bed, for the Evil One rolled
up in a ball! But the chief thing about grandfather's stories was, that
he never had lied in all his life; and whatever he said was so, was so.

I will now relate to you one of his marvellous tales. I know that there
are a great many wise people who copy in the courts, and can even read
civil documents, who, if you were to put into their hand a simple
prayer-book, could not make out the first letter in it, and would show
all their teeth in derision--which is wisdom. These people laugh at
everything you tell them. Such incredulity has spread abroad in the
world! What then? (Why, may God and the Holy Virgin cease to love me if
it is not possible that even you will not believe me!) Once he said
something about witches; . . . What then? Along comes one of these head-
breakers,--and doesn't believe in witches! Yes, glory to God that I have
lived so long in the world! I have seen heretics, to whom it would be
easier to lie in confession than it would to our brothers and equals to
take snuff, and those people would deny the existence of witches! But
let them just dream about something, and they won't even tell what it
was! There's no use in talking about them!

* * * *

ST. JOHN'S EVE.

No one could have recognized this village of ours a little over a
hundred years ago: a hamlet it was, the poorest kind of a hamlet. Half a
score of miserable izbas, unplastered, badly thatched, were scattered
here and there about the fields. There was not an inclosure or decent
shed to shelter animals or wagons. That was the way the wealthy lived;
and if you had looked for our brothers, the poor,--why, a hole in the
ground,--that was a cabin for you! Only by the smoke could you tell that
a God-created man lived there. You ask why they lived so? It was not
entirely through poverty: almost every one led a wandering, Cossack
life, and gathered not a little plunder in foreign lands; it was rather
because there was no reason for setting up a well-ordered khata (wooden
house). How many people were wandering all over the country,--Crimeans,
Poles, Lithuanians! It was quite possible that their own countrymen
might make a descent, and plunder everything. Anything was possible.

In this hamlet a man, or rather a devil in human form, often made his
appearance. Why he came, and whence, no one knew. He prowled about, got
drunk, and suddenly disappeared as if into the air, and there was not a
hint of his existence. Then, again, behold, he seemed to have dropped
from the sky, and went flying about the streets of the village, of which
no trace now remains, and which was not more than a hundred paces from
Dikanka. He would collect together all the Cossacks he met; then there
were songs, laughter, money in abundance, and vodka flowed like
water. . . . He would address the pretty girls, and give them ribbons,
earrings, strings of beads,--more than they knew what to do with. It is
true that the pretty girls rather hesitated about accepting his
presents: God knows, perhaps they had passed through unclean hands. My
grandfather's aunt, who kept a tavern at that time, in which Basavriuk
(as they called that devil-man) often had his carouses, said that no
consideration on the face of the earth would have induced her to accept
a gift from him. And then, again, how avoid accepting? Fear seized on
every one when he knit his bristly brows, and gave a sidelong glance
which might send your feet, God knows whither; but if you accept, then
the next night some fiend from the swamp, with horns on his head, comes
to call, and begins to squeeze your neck, when there is a string of
beads upon it; or bite your finger, if there is a ring upon it; or drag
you by the hair, if ribbons are braided in it. God have mercy, then, on
those who owned such gifts! But here was the difficulty: it was
impossible to get rid of them; if you threw them into the water, the
diabolical ring or necklace would skim along the surface, and into your
hand.

There was a church in the village,--St. Pantelei, if I remember rightly.
There lived there a priest, Father Athanasii of blessed memory.
Observing that Basavriuk did not come to church, even on Easter, he
determined to reprove him, and impose penance upon him. Well, he hardly
escaped with his life. "Hark ye, pannotche!" [Footnote: Sir] he
thundered in reply, "learn to mind your own business instead of meddling
in other people's, if you don't want that goat's throat of yours stuck
together with boiling kutya." [Footnote: A dish of rice or wheat flour,
with honey and raisins, which is brought to the church on the
celebration of memorial masses] What was to be done with this
unrepentant man? Father Athanasii contented himself with announcing that
any one who should make the acquaintance of Basavriuk would be counted a
Catholic, an enemy of Christ's church, not a member of the human race.

In this village there was a Cossack named Korzh, who had a laborer whom
people called Peter the Orphan--perhaps because no one remembered either
his father or mother. The church starost, it is true, said that they had
died of the pest in his second year; but my grandfather's aunt would not
hear to that, and tried with all her might to furnish him with parents,
although poor Peter needed them about as much as we need last year's
snow. She said that his father had been in Zaporozhe, taken prisoner by
the Turks, underwent God only knows what tortures, and having, by some
miracle, disguised himself as a eunuch, had made his escape. Little
cared the black-browed youths and maidens about his parents. They merely
remarked, that if he only had a new coat, a red sash, a black lambskin
cap, with dandified blue crown, on his head, a Turkish sabre hanging by
his side, a whip in one hand and a pipe with handsome mountings in the
other, he would surpass all the young men. But the pity was, that the
only thing poor Peter had was a gray svitka with more holes in it than
there are gold-pieces in a Jew's pocket. And that was not the worst of
it, but this: that Korzh had a daughter, such a beauty as I think you
can hardly have chanced to see. My deceased grandfather's aunt used to
say--and you know that it is easier for a woman to kiss the Evil One
than to call anybody a beauty, without malice be it said--that this
Cossack maiden's cheeks were as plump and fresh as the pinkest poppy
when just bathed in God's dew, and, glowing, it unfolds its petals, and
coquets with the rising sun; that her brows were like black cords, such
as our maidens buy nowadays, for their crosses and ducats, of the Moscow
pedlers who visit the villages with their baskets, and evenly arched as
though peeping into her clear eyes; that her little mouth, at sight of
which the youths smacked their lips, seemed made to emit the songs of
nightingales; that her hair, black as the raven's wing, and soft as
young flax (our maidens did not then plait their hair in clubs
interwoven with pretty, bright-hued ribbons) fell in curls over her
kuntush. [Footnote: Upper garment in Little Russia.] Eh! may I never
intone another alleluia in the choir, if I would not have kissed her, in
spite of the gray which is making its way all through the old wool which
covers my pate, and my old woman beside me, like a thorn in my side!
Well, you know what happens when young men and maids live side by side.
In the twilight the heels of red boots were always visible in the place
where Pidorka chatted with her Petrus. But Korzh would never have
suspected anything out of the way, only one day--it is evident that none
but the Evil One could have inspired him--Petrus took it into his head
to kiss the Cossack maiden's rosy lips with all his heart in the
passage, without first looking well about him; and that same Evil One--
may the son of a dog dream of the holy cross!--caused the old graybeard,
like a fool, to open the cottage-door at that same moment. Korzh was
petrified, dropped his jaw, and clutched at the door for support. Those
unlucky kisses had completely stunned him. It surprised him more than
the blow of a pestle on the wall, with which, in our days, the muzhik
generally drives out his intoxication for lack of fuses and powder.

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