The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol

by Nikolai Gogol

  "What about my daughter?"

  "She's had some dealings with Satan. Giving me such horrors that I can't read any scriptures."

  "Read, read! It was not for nothing that she called you. She was worried about her soul, my little dove, and wished to drive away all wicked thoughts by prayer."

  "Have it your way, sir—by God, it's too much for me!"

  "Read, read!" the chief went on in the same admonitory voice. "You've got one night left now. You'll do a Christian deed, and I'll reward you."

  "Rewards or no rewards. . As you like, sir, only I won't read!" Khoma said resolutely.

  "Listen, philosopher!" said the chief, and his voice grew strong and menacing, "I don't like these notions. You can do that in your seminary, but not with me: I'll give you such a thrashing as your rector never gave. Do you know what a good leather whip is?"

  "How could I not!" said the philosopher, lowering his voice. "Everybody knows what a leather whip is: an insufferable thing in large quantities."

  "Yes. Only you still don't know what a scotching my boys can deliver!" the chief said menacingly, getting to his feet, and his face acquired an imperious and ferocious expression that revealed all his unbridled character, only temporarily lulled by sorrow. "First they'll scotch you for me, then douse you with vodka, then start over. Go, go! do your business! If you don't, you won't get up; if you do—a thousand pieces of gold!"

  "Oh-ho-ho! Some customer!" the philosopher thought, going out. "No joking with this one. Just you wait, brother: I'll cut and run so fast your dogs will never catch me."

  And Khoma resolved to escape without fail. He only waited till the time after dinner, when the household people all had the habit of getting into the hay under the sheds and producing, open-mouthed, such a snoring and piping that the yard came to resemble a factory.

  This time finally came. Even Yavtukh stretched out in the sun, his eyes closed. In fear and trembling, the philosopher quietly went to the garden, from where it seemed to him it would be easier and less conspicuous to escape into the fields. This garden, as commonly happens, was terribly overgrown and thus highly conducive to any secret undertaking. Except for one path beaten down on household necessity, the rest was hidden by thickly spreading cherry trees, elders, burdock that stuck its tall stalks with clingy pink knobs way up. Hops covered the top of this whole motley collection of trees and bushes like a net, forming a roof above them that spread over to the wattle fence and hung down it in twining snakes along with wild field bluebells. Beyond the wattle fence that served as a boundary to the garden, there spread a whole forest of weeds which no one seemed to be interested in, and a scythe would have broken to pieces if it had decided to put its blade to their thick, woody stems.

  As the philosopher went to step over the wattle fence, his teeth chattered and his heart pounded so hard that it frightened him. The skirt of his long chlamys seemed stuck to the ground, as if someone had nailed it down. As he was stepping over, it seemed to him that some voice rattled in his ears with a deafening whistle: "Where to, where to?" The philosopher flitted into the weeds and broke into a run, constantly stumbling over old roots and crushing moles underfoot. He could see that once he got through the weeds, all he had to do was run across a field, beyond which darkled a thicket of blackthorn, where he reckoned he would be safe, and passing through which he supposed he would come to the road straight to Kiev. He ran across the field at once and wound up amid the dense blackthorns. He got through the blackthorns, leaving pieces of his frock coat on every sharp thorn in lieu of a toll, and found himself in a small hollow. A pussy willow spread its hanging branches almost to the ground. A small spring shone pure as silver. The philosopher's first business was to lie down and drink his fill, because he felt unbearably thirsty.

  "Good water!" he said, wiping his mouth. "I could rest here." "No, better keep running.

  You might have somebody after you." These words came from above his ears. He turned: before him stood Yavtukh.

  "Yavtukh, you devil!" the philosopher thought to himself. "I could just take you by the legs and . . . and beat your vile mug in, and whatever else you've got, with an oak log."

  "You oughtn't to have made such a detour," Yavtukh went on.

  "Much better to take the path I did: straight past the stables. And it's too bad about the frock coat. Good broadcloth. How much did you pay per yard? Anyhow, we've had a nice walk, it's time for home."

  The philosopher, scratching himself, trudged after Yavtukh. "The accursed witch will give me a hot time now," he thought. "Though what's with me, really? What am I afraid of? Am I not a Cossack? I did read for two nights, God will help with the third. The accursed witch must have done a good deal of sinning for the unclean powers to stand by her like that."

  These reflections occupied him as he entered the master's yard. Having encouraged himself with such observations, he persuaded Dorosh, who, through his connection with the steward, occasionally had access to the master's cellar, to fetch a jug of rotgut, and the two friends, sitting under the shed, supped not much less than half a bucket, so that the philosopher, suddenly getting to his feet, shouted: "Musicians! We must have musicians!"—and, without waiting for the musicians, broke into a trepak in the cleared spot in the middle of the yard. He danced until it came time for the afternoon snack, when the household people, standing in a circle around him, as is usual in such cases, finally spat and went away, saying, "Look how long the man's been dancing!" Finally the philosopher went right to sleep, and only a good dousing with cold water could wake him up for supper. Over supper he talked about what a Cossack is and how he should not be afraid of anything in the world.

  "It's time," said Yavtukh, "let's go."

  "Bite on a nail, you accursed hog!" thought the philosopher, and getting to his feet, said: "Let's go."

  On the way, the philosopher constantly glanced to right and left and tried to talk a little with his guides. But Yavtukh kept mum; Dorosh himself was untalkative. The night was infernal. Far off a whole pack of wolves howled. And even the dogs' barking was somehow frightening.

  "Seems like it's something else howling—that's not a wolf," said Dorosh.

  Yavtukh kept mum. The philosopher found nothing to say.

  They approached the church and stepped in under its decrepit vaults, which showed how little the owner of the estate cared about God and his own soul. Yavtukh and Dorosh withdrew as before, and the philosopher remained alone. Everything was the same. Everything had the same menacingly familiar look. He paused for a minute. In the middle, as ever, stood the motionless coffin of the terrible witch. "I won't be afraid, by God, I won't be afraid!" he said, and, again drawing a circle around himself, he began recalling all his incantations. The silence was dreadful; the candles flickered, pouring light all over the church. The philosopher turned one page, then another, and noticed that he was not reading what was in the book at all. In fear he crossed himself and began to sing. This cheered him somewhat: the reading went ahead, and pages flashed by one after another. Suddenly . . . amidst the silence . . . the iron lid of the coffin burst with a crack and the dead body rose. It was still more horrible than the first time. Its teeth clacked horribly, row against row; its lips twitched convulsively and, with wild shrieks, incantations came rushing out. Wind whirled through the church, icons fell to the floor, broken glass dropped from the windows. The doors tore from their hinges, and a numberless host of monsters flew into God's church. A terrible noise of wings and scratching claws filled the whole church. Everything flew and rushed about, seeking the philosopher everywhere.

  Khoma's head cleared of the last trace of drunkenness. He just kept crossing himself and reading prayers at random. And at the same time he heard the unclean powers flitting about him, all but brushing him with the tips of their wings and repulsive tails. He did not have the courage to look at them closely; he only saw the whole wall occupied by a huge monster standing amidst its own tangled hair as in a forest; through the web of hair two eyes stared
horribly, the eyebrows raised slightly. Above it in the air there was something like an immense bubble, with a thousand tongs and scorpion stings reaching from its middle. Black earth hung on them in lumps. They all looked at him, searching, unable to see him, surrounded by the mysterious circle.

  "Bring Viy! Go get Viy!" the words of the dead body rang out.

  And suddenly there was silence in the church; the wolves' howling could be heard far away, and soon heavy footsteps rang out in the church; with a sidelong glance he saw them leading in some squat, hefty, splay-footed man. He was black earth all over. His earth-covered legs and arms stuck out like strong, sinewy roots. Heavily he trod, stumbling all the time. His long eyelids were lowered to the ground. With horror Khoma noticed that the face on him was made of iron. He was brought in under the arms and put right by the place where Khoma stood.

  "Lift my eyelids, I can't see!" Viy said in a subterranean voice— and the entire host rushed to lift his eyelids.

  "Don't look!" some inner voice whispered to the philosopher. He could not help himself and looked.

  "There he is!" Viy cried and fixed an iron finger on him. And all that were there fell upon the philosopher. Breathless, he crashed to the ground and straightaway the spirit flew out of him in terror.

  A cockcrow rang out. This was already the second cockcrow; the gnomes had missed the first. The frightened spirits rushed pell-mell for the windows and doors in order to fly out quickly, but nothing doing: and so they stayed there, stuck in the doors and windows. When the priest came in, he stopped at the sight of such disgrace in God's sanctuary and did not dare serve a panikhida9 in such a place. So the church remained forever with monsters stuck in its doors and windows, overgrown with forest, roots, weeds, wild blackthorn; and no one now can find the path to it.

  When rumors of this reached Kiev and the theologian Khalyava heard, finally, that such had been the lot of the philosopher Khoma, he fell to thinking for a whole hour. In the meantime great changes had happened with him. Fortune had smiled on him: upon completing his studies, he had been made bell-ringer of the tallest belfry, and he almost always went about with a bloody nose, because the wooden stairs of the belfry had been put together every which way.

  "Have you heard what happened with Khoma?" Tiberiy Gorobets, by then a philosopher and sporting a fresh mustache, said, coming up to him.

  "It's what God granted him," said the ringer Khalyava. "Let's go to the tavern and commemorate his soul!"

  The young philosopher, who had come into his rights with the passion of an enthusiast, so that his trousers and frock coat and even his hat gave off a whiff of spirits and coarse tobacco, instantly expressed his readiness.

  "Khoma was a nice man!" said the ringer, as the lame tavern keeper set the third mug down in front of him. "A fine man! And he perished for nothing!"

  "No, I know why he perished: because he got scared. If he hadn't been scared, the witch couldn't have done anything to him. You just have to cross yourself and spit right on her tail, and nothing will happen. I know all about it. Here in Kiev, the women sitting in the marketplace are all witches."

  To this the ringer nodded as a sign of agreement. But, noticing that his tongue was unable to articulate a single word, he carefully got up from the table and, swaying from side to side, went off to hide himself in the remotest part of the weeds. Withal not forgetting, out of long habit, to steal an old boot sole that was lying on a bench.

  THE STORY OF HOW IVAN IVANOVICH QUARRELED WITH IVAN NIKIFOROVICH

  Chapter I

  Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Nikiforovich

  A FINE BEKESHA1 Ivan Ivanovich has! A most excellent one! And what fleece! Pah, damnation, what fleece! dove gray and frosty! I'll bet you anything that nobody has the like!

  Look at it, for God's sake—especially if he starts talking with somebody—look from the side: it's simply delicious! There's no describing it: velvet! silver! fire! Lord God! Saint Nicholas the holy wonder-worker! why don't I have a bekesha like that! He had it made for him back before Agafya Fedoseevna went to Kiev. Do you know Agafya Fedoseevna? The one who bit off the assessor's ear?

  A wonderful man, Ivan Ivanovich! What a house he's got in Mirgorod! A gallery on oak posts all the way round it, with benches along it everywhere. When it gets too hot, Ivan Ivanovich throws off the bekesha and his underclothes, and relaxes on the gallery in just his shirt, watching what goes on in the yard and street. What apples and pears he's got right under his windows! Just open the window—the branches burst into the room. That's all in front of the house; but you should see what he's got in his garden! What hasn't he got in it! Plums, cherries, black cherries, all kinds of vegetables, sunflowers, cucumbers, melons, beans—even a threshing floor and a smithy.

  A wonderful man, Ivan Ivanovich! He has a great love of melons. They're his favorite food.

  As soon as he finishes dinner and goes out to the gallery in nothing but his shirt, he immediately tells Gapka to bring two melons. Then he cuts them up himself, collects the seeds in a special piece of paper, and begins to eat. Then he tells Gapka to bring the inkpot and himself, with his own hand, writes on the paper with the seeds: "This melon was eaten on such-and-such date." If there was some guest at the time, then: "with the participation of so-and-so."

  The late judge of Mirgorod always looked at Ivan Ivanovich's house with admiration. Yes, it's not a bad little house at all. I like the way rooms and hallways have been added on to it, so that if you look at it from afar you see only roofs sitting one on top of the other, looking very much like a plateful of pancakes, or, better still, like the kind of fungus that grows on trees.

  Anyhow, the roofs are all thatched with rushes; a willow, an oak, and two apple trees lean on them with their spreading branches. Small windows with whitewashed openwork shutters flash between the trees and even run out to the street.

  A wonderful man, Ivan Ivanovich! The Poltava commissary also knows him! Dorosh Tarasovich Pukhivochka, whenever he comes from Khorol, always stops to see him. And the archpriest, Father Pyotr, who lives in Koliberda, whenever he has a half-dozen guests gathered, always says he knows of no one who fulfills his Christian duty or knows how to live so well as Ivan Ivanovich.

  God, how time flies! By then ten years had gone by since he was left a widower. He had no children. Gapka has children and they often run about in the yard. Ivan Ivanovich always gives each of them a bagel, or a slice of melon, or a pear. Gapka carries the keys to his storerooms and cellars; the keys to the big trunk in his bedroom and the middle storeroom Ivan Ivanovich keeps himself, and he doesn't like to let anyone into them. Gapka, a healthy girl, goes about in an apron and has fresh calves and cheeks.

  And what a pious man Ivan Ivanovich is! Every Sunday he puts on his bekesha and goes to church. On entering, Ivan Ivanovich, after bowing in all directions, usually installs himself in the choir and sings along very well in a bass voice. And when the service is over, Ivan Ivanovich simply can't refrain from going up to every beggar. He might not want to occupy himself with something so boring if he weren't prompted to it by his natural kindness.

  "Greetings, poor dear!" he usually says, having sought out a most crippled woman in a ragged dress made all of patches. "Where are you from, dear?"

  "I come from a farmstead, good sir. It's three days since I've had anything to eat or drink. My own children drove me out!"

  "Poor thing, why have you come here?"

  "Just to beg alms, good sir, if someone would give me enough to buy bread."

  "Hm! so it's bread you want?" Ivan Ivanovich usually asks.

  "How can I not? I'm hungry as a dog."

  "Hm!" Ivan Ivanovich usually replies. "Then maybe you'd also like some meat?"

  "Whatever your honor gives me I'll be pleased with."

  "Hm! so meat is better than bread?"

  "A hungry person can't be choosy. Whatever your honor gives me, it's all good."

  At that the old woman usually holds out her hand.

  "Well, go with
God," Ivan Ivanovich says. "Why are you standing there? I'm not beating you!" And, after addressing the same questions to a second one, and a third, he finally goes home, or stops to have a glass of vodka with his neighbor Ivan Nikiforovich, or with the judge, or with the police chief.

  Ivan Ivanovich likes it very much when someone gives him a present or a treat. That pleases him very much.

  Ivan Nikiforovich is also a very good man. His yard is next to Ivan Ivanovich's yard. Never yet has the world produced such friends as they are with each other. Anton Prokofievich Pupopuz, who to this day still goes around in a brown frock coat with blue sleeves and on Sundays has dinner at the judge's, used to say that the devil himself had tied Ivan Nikiforovich and Ivan Ivanovich to each other with a piece of string. Wherever the one goes, the other gets dragged along.

  Ivan Nikiforovich never married. Though there was talk that he had been married, it was a sheer lie. I know Ivan Nikiforovich very well, and I can tell you that he never even had any intention of getting married. Where on earth does all this gossip come from? Just as it got spread about that Ivan Nikiforovich was born with a tail behind. But that invention is so preposterous, as well as vile and indecent, that I don't even consider it necessary to refute it before my enlightened readers, who undoubtedly know that only witches, and a very few of them, have tails behind, and, anyhow, they belong more to the female sex than to the male.

  Despite their great attachment, these rare friends were not entirely alike. Their characters can best be known by comparison: Ivan Ivanovich has an extraordinary gift for speaking with extreme pleasantness. Lord, how he speaks! The feeling can only be compared with that of someone picking through your hair or gently passing a finger over your heel. You listen and listen—and your head lolls. Pleasant! extremely pleasant! like a nap after swimming. Ivan Nikiforovich, on the contrary, is mostly silent, though if he slaps on a phrase, just hold tight: he'll trim you better than any razor. Ivan Ivanovich is tall and lean; Ivan Nikiforovich is slightly shorter, but instead expands sideways. Ivan Ivanovich's head resembles a turnip tail-down, Ivan Nikiforovich's a turnip tail-up. It's only after dinner that Ivan Ivanovich lies on the gallery in nothing but his shirt; in the evening he puts on his bekesha and goes somewhere—either to the town store, which he supplies with flour, or out to the fields to hunt quail. Ivan Nikiforovich lies on the porch all day long—if the day isn't very hot, he usually puts his back to the sun—and doesn't care to go anywhere. In the morning, if he's of a mind to, he may pass around the yard, looking over the household, and then retire again. In the old days, he would sometimes call on Ivan Ivanovich. Ivan Ivanovich is an extremely refined man and never says an improper word in decent conversation, and becomes offended at once if he hears one. Ivan Nikiforovich sometimes makes a slip; then Ivan Ivanovich usually gets up from his place and says, "Enough, enough, Ivan Nikiforovich, sooner take to the sunlight than speak such ungodly words." Ivan Ivanovich gets very angry if he finds a fly in his borscht: he's beside himself then, and he throws the plate, and it also means trouble for the host. Ivan Nikiforovich is extremely fond of bathing, and once he's in the water up to his chin, he asks that a table with a samovar also be put in the water, and he likes very much to drink his tea in such coolness. Ivan Ivanovich shaves twice a week, Ivan Nikiforovich once. Ivan Ivanovich is extremely inquisitive.