“Hello, poor man,” he said when he saw Khoma, who had stopped at the door with his cap in his hands. “How is your work going? Is everything going successfully?”
“It depends how you define ‘successfully.’ There are such devilish doings that you just want to take your cap and run off as fast as your legs will carry you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that your daughter, my lord… Of course according to sound reasoning, she is of noble family; no one can dispute that, but please don’t be offended, may God rest her soul…”
“What about my daughter?”
“She’s allowed Satan to service her.20 She’s struck such terror into me that Holy Scripture has no role to play.”
“Keep reading, keep reading! She had some reason for summoning you. My dear sweetie took care for her soul and wanted to drive out all evil intentions by prayer.”
“As you wish, my lord. But honest to God, I can’t stand it any more!”
“Keep reading, keep reading!” the lieutenant continued in the same exhortative tone. “You only have one night left. You’ll do a Christian deed, and I’ll reward you.”
“No matter what rewards… Suit yourself, my lord, but I will not read!” Khoma said decisively.
“Listen, Philosopher!” the lieutenant said, and his voice had become firm and threatening, “I don’t like all these tales you’re telling. You can do that over in your bursa. But not with me: I’ll give you a flogging like you’ve never had from the rector. Do you know what good leather Cossack whips are like?”
“How could I help knowing!” the Philosopher said, lowering his voice. “Everyone knows what leather Cossack whips are. When you use a lot of them, it’s quite an unbearable thing.”
“Yes. But you don’t yet know how my lads can pour it on!” the lieutenant said threateningly, getting to his feet, and his face took on a commanding and savage expression that revealed his unbridled character, which had been lulled to sleep for a time by his grief. “First they’ll give you a good flogging, then they’ll sprinkle you with vodka, then they’ll do it again. Run along, do your job! If you don’t do it—you’ll never get up again; and if you do it—you’ll get a thousand gold pieces!”
“Oh-ho-ho! Now that’s a bold fellow!” the Philosopher thought as he went out. “He’s not to be trifled with. Just wait, my friend. I’ll take to my heels so fast you won’t be able to hunt me down with your dogs.”
And Khoma firmly decided to run away. He was just waiting for the hour after the midday meal, when all the servants had the habit of crawling into the hay near the barns, opening their mouths, and emitting so much snoring and whistling that the master’s farmstead began to resemble a factory. That time finally came. Even Yavtukh was lying stretched out in the sun with his eyes closed tight. The Philosopher, trembling in fear, set off quietly into the master’s garden, which seemed to him to be the easiest and least noticeable route for escape into the fields. This garden was terribly neglected and thus was extremely auspicious for all kinds of secret enterprises. Except for a single little path that had been trodden down for household needs, the whole garden was covered by thickly spreading cherry trees, elderberry bushes, and burdock, which had stuck up its tall stalks, with their prickly pink burrs, above all the rest. A hop plant covered the top of this whole motley collection of trees and bushes like a net, and formed a roof over them that stretched onto the wattle fence and fell down from it in curly snakes together with wild bluebells. Beyond the fence that served as a boundary for the garden extended a whole forest of tall weeds, into which it seemed no one had ever had the curiosity to peek. It seemed that a scythe would shatter into pieces if it tried to touch the thick woody stalks with its blade.
When the Philosopher prepared to step over the wattle fence, his teeth were chattering and his heart was beating so hard that he frightened himself. The hem of his long garment seemed to stick to the ground as if someone had nailed it down. When he was stepping over the fence, it seemed to him that some kind of voice was jabbering in his ear with a deafening whistle: “Where are you going, where are you going?” The Philosopher scampered into the weeds and set off running, constantly stumbling on the old roots and trampling on moles. He could see that after he got out of the weeds he would have to run across the field, beyond which one could see thick blackthorn shrubs, where he thought that he would be safe, and that once he passed through the blackthorn he would find the road leading straight to Kyiv. He quickly ran across the field and found himself in the thick blackthorn shrubs. He crawled through the blackthorn, leaving pieces of his frock coat on each sharp thorn instead of a toll. He found himself in a small gully. A pussy willow with its spreading branches reached almost to the ground in places. A small spring, as pure as silver, sparkled. The first thing the Philosopher did was lie down and drink his fill from it, because he was unbearably thirsty.
“Good water!” he said, wiping his mouth. “I can rest for a little while here.”
“No, we’d better keep moving. What if they pursue you!”
These words resounded right above his ears. He looked around: Yavtukh was standing before him.
“That damned Yavtukh!” the Philosopher thought angrily. “I’d like to take you by the legs… And I’d beat your disgusting face and everything else you have with an oak log.”
“You shouldn’t have gone such a roundabout way,” Yavtukh continued. “It’s much better to go the way I went, right past the stables. Too bad about your frock coat. It’s good cloth. How much did you pay per yard? Anyway, you’ve had a nice stroll, time to go home.”
The Philosopher followed Yavtukh, scratching his head. “Now the damned witch is really going to give it to me hot,” he thought. “But anyway, what am I, in fact? What am I afraid of? Am I not a Cossack? After all, I’ve read for two nights, God will help me with the third. That damned witch must have committed a pile of sins, since the powers of evil are so solidly behind her.”
These were his meditations as he entered the master’s farmyard. After cheering himself up with such observations, he asked Dorosh, who by virtue of the steward’s patronage sometimes had access to the master’s wine cellars, to grab a bottle of raw vodka. The two friends drank almost half a pail while sitting near the barn, so that the Philosopher suddenly got up onto his feet, shouting: “Musicians! I must have musicians!” Without waiting for the musicians, he started dancing a trepak in a clear space in the middle of the yard. He danced until it was time for the midafternoon snack, and the servants, who had surrounded him in a circle, as is usual in such cases, finally spat and walked away, saying, “That’s how long a man can keep dancing!” Finally the Philosopher lay down to sleep right on the spot, and it took a decent-sized tub of cold water to wake him up for supper. At supper he talked about what a Cossack is and how he shouldn’t fear anything on earth.
“It’s time,” Yavtukh said, “let’s go.”
“Curse your tongue, you damned boar!” the Philosopher thought. Getting up, he said, “Let’s go.”
As they walked, the Philosopher kept looking to both sides and tried to start up a conversation with his escorts. But Yavtukh was silent; even Dorosh was uninterested in talking. It was a hellish night. A whole pack of wolves was howling in the distance. And even the barking of the dogs was somehow terrifying.
“It seems something else is howling: That’s not a wolf,” Dorosh said.
Yavtukh was silent. The Philosopher could not find anything to say.
They neared the church and entered its decrepit wooden vaults, which showed how little the master of the estate had concerned himself with God and with his own soul. Yavtukh and Dorosh went away as they had before, and the Philosopher remained alone. Everything was just the same. Everything looked threateningly familiar as it had before. He stopped for a moment. In the middle of the church the coffin of the horrible witch stood just as immobile. “I’m not going to be afraid, honest to God, I’m not going to be afraid!” he said, and drawin
g a circle around himself as before, he began to recall all his incantations. The silence was terrifying; the candles flickered and flooded the whole church with light. The Philosopher turned over one page, then turned another, and noticed that he was reading something completely different from what was written in the book. With terror he crossed himself and began to sing. This emboldened him a bit; the reading started up again, and the pages flashed by one after another. Suddenly… amid the silence… the iron lid of the coffin broke open with a crash and the corpse got up. It was still more terrifying than the first time. Its teeth clashed against each other in a terrifying way, its lips were convulsed, and incantations rushed from it with a wild squealing. A whirlwind flew through the church, the icons fell to the ground, broken panes of the windows flew down from above. The doors tore off their hinges, and an overwhelming force of monsters flew into God’s church. The terrifying noise from their wings and the scraping of their talons filled the whole church. Everything was flying and soaring, seeking the Philosopher everywhere.
The very last traces of drunkenness left Khoma’s brain. He just kept crossing himself and reading the prayers haphazardly. All the while he could hear the evil powers rushing around him, almost touching him with the tips of their wings and their repulsive tails. He didn’t have the courage to look at them; all he could see was some kind of huge monster occupying the whole wall, enveloped in tangled hair as if in a forest; two eyes with brows slightly lifted looked through the network of hair in a terrifying way. Above it, something in the form of a huge bubble hovered in the air, with a thousand pincers and scorpion stingers extending out from it. Black earth hung on them in clumps. The monsters were all looking at him, searching for him, and couldn’t see him because he was surrounded by the mystical circle.21
“Bring Viy! Go get Viy!” resounded the words of the corpse.
And suddenly the church became silent; one could hear the wolves howling in the distance, and soon the sound of heavy steps echoed throughout the church; looking sideways, he could see that they were leading some kind of squat, burly, splay-footed person. He was all covered by black earth. His legs and arms, with earth scattered over them, protruded like sinewy, strong roots. He stepped heavily, constantly stumbling. His long eyelids hung down to the very ground. Khoma noticed with horror that his face was made of iron. They led him by the arms and placed him right by the spot where Khoma was standing.
“Lift my eyelids: I cannot see!” Viy said in an underground voice—and the whole mob rushed to lift his eyelids.
“Don’t look!” some kind of inner voice whispered to the Philosopher. He couldn’t resist and he looked.
“There he is!” Viy screamed, pointing his iron finger at him. And they all threw themselves onto the Philosopher. He crashed lifeless to the ground, and his spirit immediately flew out of him from terror.
The rooster’s cry resounded. This was the second cry; the gnomes had failed to hear the first one. The frightened spirits rushed helter-skelter to the windows and doors in order to fly out as fast as they could, but it was no use: They remained there, stuck to the doors and windows. When the priest came in, he stopped at the sight of such a desecration of God’s holy shrine and did not dare to hold the funeral service in such a place. And so the church remained forever with the monsters stuck to the doors and windows; it was overgrown by trees, roots, weeds, and wild blackthorn; and now no one can find the way to it.22
■ □ ■
When rumors reached Kyiv about this, and the Theologian Khalyava finally learned of the fate of the Philosopher Khoma, he spent a whole hour thinking about it. During the intervening time great changes had happened to him. Happiness had smiled on him. After finishing his course of study he was made the bell ringer in the highest bell tower, and he almost always appeared with a smashed nose, because the wooden staircase in the bell tower had been built in a very slapdash fashion.
“Did you hear what happened to Khoma?” Tiberius Gorobets said to him. He had meanwhile become a Philosopher himself and was sporting a brand-new mustache.
“That was God’s will for him,” said the bell ringer Khalyava. “Let’s go to a tavern and drink to his memory!”
The young Philosopher, who had begun to enjoy his rights with the passion of an enthusiast, so that his trousers, and his frock coat, and even his cap gave off a smell of alcohol and shag tobacco, immediately expressed his willingness to partake.
“Khoma was a really good fellow!” the bell ringer said, when the lame tavern keeper had placed his third tankard in front of him. “He was a notable fellow! And he perished for no good reason.”
“I know why he perished: because he was afraid. If he hadn’t been afraid, the witch couldn’t have done anything to him. All you have to do is cross yourself and spit right on her tail, and then nothing will happen to you. I know all about it. After all, here in Kyiv all the women who sit in the bazaars are witches.”
To this the bell ringer nodded his head as a sign of agreement. But when he noticed that his tongue could no longer utter a single word, he carefully got up from the table and went staggering off to hide in the most distant spot in the tall weeds. At the same time, according to his old custom, he didn’t neglect to swipe an old boot sole that was lying there on a bench.
The Portrait
I
The little picture gallery at the Shchukin Market stalls attracted more people than anywhere else.1 This little shop indeed presented the most varied collection of strange wonders. The paintings were mostly in oil, covered with dark green varnish, in tawdry, dark yellow frames. A winter scene with white trees; a thoroughly red evening resembling the glow of a conflagration; a Flemish peasant with a pipe and a splayed arm, who looked more like a turkey in fancy cuffs than a person—these were the usual subjects. In addition there were several engraved likenesses: a portrait of the Persian prince Khosrow Mirza in a sheepskin cap, and portraits of some generals with crooked noses, wearing tricorn hats. The doors of such a shop are usually hung with whole sheaves of the kind of pictures that attest to the native talent of the Russian. One of them depicts Princess Miliktrisa Kirbitievna, another the city of Jerusalem, whose houses and churches have been unceremoniously flooded with red paint, engulfing part of the ground as well as two Russian peasants in mittens, saying their prayers.2 Usually there are not many buyers for such works of art, but to make up for it, there are heaps of onlookers. Inevitably a hard-drinking footman is gaping in front of them, holding covered dishes of dinner from a tavern for his master, who will doubtless have to slurp some soup that is none too hot. Inevitably a soldier is standing there, that cavalier of the flea market, who’s hoping to sell two penknives, and a tradeswoman from the Okhta neighborhood with her box full of shoes for sale. Each of them admires the pictures in a particular way. The peasants usually poke them with their fingers; the cavaliers do a serious inspection; servant boys and workshop boys laugh and mock each other with the caricature drawings; old footmen in coarse wool overcoats look just in order to have a chance to gape a bit; and the tradeswomen, young Russian peasant women, hurry here by instinct, in order to hear what people are chattering about and see what they’re looking at.
Just then the young artist Chertkov, who was passing by, stopped involuntarily in front of the shop. His old overcoat and far from foppish dress showed that he was the kind of man who is selflessly dedicated to his work and has no time to worry about fashionable attire, always so mysteriously attractive to young people. He stopped in front of the shop and first laughed inwardly at these monstrous paintings. Finally, he was irresistibly overcome by meditation. He began to think about the question, who could possibly need works like these? That the common Russian people stare in wonder at cheap woodcuts of the stories of Yeruslan Lazarevich, of The Glutton-Drunkard, of Foma and Yeryoma—this did not strike him as strange.3 The things they depicted were quite accessible and clear for the common people. But where were the buyers for these gaudy, filthy oil paintings? Who needed these Flemish p
easants, these red-and-azure landscapes, which displayed a sort of pretension to a somewhat higher stage of art, but which expressed instead the deep debasement of art? If these had been the works of a child who was submitting to an involuntary whim, if they had had no regularity at all and had not preserved even the most rudimentary conventions of mechanistic drawing; if they had been entirely in the mode of caricature, but if the slightest bit of effort had glimmered through the caricature, some kind of impulse to produce something resembling nature—but one could find nothing of the sort in them. A senile dull-wittedness, a senseless inclination, or more precisely a force they could not resist, had guided the hands of their creators. Who had labored over them? And there was no doubt that it was one and the same person who had labored, because there were the same colors, the same style, the same practiced, accustomed hand, which belonged more likely to a crudely built automaton than to a person.
He was still standing in front of those filthy paintings and looking at them, but not really looking at them at all any more, while the owner of the art store, a grayish man of about fifty, in a coarse wool overcoat, with a chin that had long gone unshaven, was telling him that the paintings were “of the very highest quality” and had just come from the exchange, the varnish hadn’t yet dried and they hadn’t been framed. “Look for yourself, I swear on my honor that you’ll be satisfied.” All these seductive speeches flew right by Chertkov’s ears. Finally, in order to cheer up the owner a bit, he picked up some dusty paintings from the floor. These were old family portraits whose descendants would probably never be found. Almost mechanically he began to wipe the dust off one of them. A slight blush flamed up on his face, the blush that signifies secret pleasure at something unexpected. He began to rub impatiently with his hand, and soon he saw a portrait in which a masterly brush was clearly evident, although the colors seemed somewhat dull and darkened. It was an old man with an anxious and even malicious expression on his face. On his lips there was a cutting, venomous smile, and along with it a sort of fear; a sickly ruddiness was lightly spread across his face, disfigured by wrinkles; his eyes were large, dark, and dim; but at the same time a kind of strange vitality could be seen in them. It seemed that this portrait depicted a miser who had spent his life over his money chest, or one of those unfortunate people who their whole lives are tormented by the happiness of others. Overall, the face retained the vivid imprint of a southern physiognomy. Swarthiness, hair as black as pitch with streaks of gray showing through—this is not encountered in residents of the northern provinces. The whole portrait bespoke a certain unfinishedness, but if it had been completed to perfection, an expert would have gone mad trying to guess how the most perfect creation of Van Dyck had ended up in Russia and found its way to the little shop in Shchukin Market.4
The Nose and Other Stories Page 8
