The Terrible Revenge

==I==
The outskirts of Kiev resounded to the din of a wedding feast. The Cossack Captain Gorobetz was celebrating the wedding of his son. A great many people had come as guests to the Captain’s house. In the old days they liked to eat well, they liked even more to drink, and most of all they liked to enjoy themselves. The Dnieper Cossack Mikitka was among the guests. He arrived on his sorrel horse straight from a wild orgy in the Pereshlyaye Plain where for seven days and seven nights he had been regaling the Polish king’s gentlemen with red wine. Among the guests, too, was Danilo Bumlbash, the Captain’s sworn brother, who came with his young wife Katherine and his year-old son from the other side of the Dnieper where his farmstead lay tucked away in a fold between two hills. The wedding guests mar- velled at the fair face of Katherine, her eyebrows black as German velvet, her handsome dress of fine cloth and blouse of blue silk, her boots with silver-shod heels; but they marvelled still more that her old father had not come with her. He had been living for no more than a year in the Cossack country beyond the Dnieper. For twenty-one years there had been no news of him, and he returned to his daughter only after she was married and had borne a son. He would no doubt have told many wonderful stories of his adven- tures. He had been away so long in foreign parts that it would be strange indeed if he had no tales to tell! Everything is different there; the people are different, and there are no Christian churches . . . But he had not come. They gave the guests a strong drink of vodka and mead with raisins and plums and on a large dish a round white loaf of fine bread made with butter and eggs. The musicians tried the loaf first, concentrating their attention on the lower crust, for there were coins baked in it; and, falling silent for a while, they put aside their cymbals, fiddles and tambourines. Meanwhile the young matrons and girls, having wiped their mouths with their embroidered kerchiefs, stepped out again into the middle of the room; the young men, arms akimbo and looking proudly about them, were ready to dash forward to meet them — ^when the old Captain brought out two icons to bless the young couple. Those icons had been given to him by the venerable hermit, Father Bartholomew. They had no rich ornaments, there was no glitter of gold or silver on them; but no evil power dare come near the man in whose house they were. Having raised the icons, the Captain was about to utter a brief prayer, when all at once the children who were playing on the floor became frightened and began to cry loudly, and after them the people in the room shrank back, and they all pointed their fingers in alarm at a Cossack who was standing among them. No one knew who he was. But he had already danced through a Cossack reel to everybody’s delight and he had raised many a laugh among the people who gathered round him. But when the Captain lifted up the icons, the Cossack’s face underwent a sudden transformation: his nose grew longer and twisted to one side, his eyes began to roll wildly and their colour changed from brown to green, his lips turned blue, his chin shook and became pointed like a spear, a long tusk grew out of his mouth, a hump raised itself from behind his head, and in a twinkling the Cossack turned into an old man. 
"That’s him! That’s him!" shouts were raised in the crowd as they all huddled together.
"The sorcerer has appeared again!" the mothers cried, snatching up their children.
Solemnly and with great dignity the Cossack Captain stepped forward and, turning the icons towards the sorcerer, said in a loud voice, "Vanish out of sight, image of Satan! There is no room for you here!"
With a hiss and a snap like a wolf, the mysterious old man vanished. A hubbub of voices rose in the room, like the roar of the sea in a storm, each expressing his own opinion or hazarding his own guess.
"What sorcerer is this?" young and ignorant people asked.
"There’s going to be trouble!" the old men were saying to each other, shaking their heads.
Everywhere, in every comer of the Cossack Captain's spacious forecourt, the people gathered in small groups and listened to the story of the mysterious sorcerer. But almost every other man was telling a dijflferent tale, and no one knew anything certain about him. A cask of mead was rolled out into the yard, and there were gallons of Greek wine besides. Everybody grew merry again. The musicians struck up a dance tune; the girls, the young matrons and the brave Cossacks in their bright Ukrainian coats were soon caught up in the dance. The ninety-year-olds and the hundred-year-olds, having had a drop too much, jigged about too, not satisfied idly to remember the years that had passed. They feasted far into the night, and feasted as people no longer feast nowadays. By and by the guests began to disperse, but only a few went home. Many of them stayed to spend the night in the Captain’s large courtyard, and many more Cossacks dropped to sleep, uninvited, on the floor, or under the benches, or by their horses, or near the bam: wherever a Cossack’s head, heavy with drink, dropped, there the Cossack lay, snoring for all Kiev to hear.
==II==
A soft light shone all over the world: that was the moon which had appeared from behind a hill. It covered the hilly bank of the Dnieper as with a costly damask muslin, white as snow, and the shadows drew back further into the dense pine woods.
A large boat was gliding in midstream. Two Cossack oarsmen sat in front, their black Cossack caps cocked on one side, and from beneath the oars spray flew in all directions like sparks from a flint. Why did the Cossacks not sing? Why did they not speak about the Catholic priests who went about the Ukraine, con- verting the Cossack people into Catholics? Why did they not tell about the hard-won battle with the Tartars at the Salt Lake which had gone on for two days? But how could they be expected to sing or to speak of acts of bravery when their master Danilo sat brooding, the sleeve of his crimson coat trailing in the water? Their mistress, Katherine, was gently rocking her child, and not for one moment did she take her eyes off it, while the spray like grey dust descended upon her fine dress, unprotected by a boat cover.
How beautiful the high hills, the broad meadows, and the green woods are when seen from the middle of the Dnieper 1 Those hills are not hills: they seem to float in the air, sharp-pointed above as below, and under them and above them is the towering sky. Those woods on the hills are not woods: they are the hair which grows on the shaggy head of the wood-demon; under the wood- demon’s head his beard is being rinsed in the water, and both under his beard and over his head is the towering sky. Those meadows are not meadows: they are a green girdle encircling the round sky, and the moon is taking a stroll in both the upper and lower halves.
Danilo gazed neither to the right nor to the left; he gazed on his young wife.
"Why are you so sad, my dearest Katherine?"
"I am not sad, Danilo. The strange stories about the sorcerer have filled my heart with dread. They say that when he was bom he was a terrifying sight... and no small child would play with him. Listen, Danilo. They tell such dreadful things about him. They say he always imagines people are laughing at him. If he meets a man on a dark night, he immediately thinks the stranger is grinning at him. Next day that man is found dead. As I listened to those stories, I was filled with dreadful forebodings, Danilo; I felt frightened," said Katherine, taking out a kerchief and wiping the face of the child who slept peacefully in her lap.
Not a word from Danilo, who was scanning the dark bank of the river where, in the distance, an earthen mound could be seen rising like a black shadow from behind the wood, and behind the mound rose the dark pile of an old castle. Three deep wrinkles suddenly appeared above Danilo’s eyebrows; his left hand stroked his handsome moustaches.
"It isn’t that he is a sorcerer that worries me," he said. "What worries me is that he is here for some evil purpose. What did he want to come here for at all? I’m told the Poles intend to build some kind of fortress to cut off our way to the Dnieper Cossacks. There may be some truth in it...1 shall destroy his devilish lair if any rumour reaches me that he is using it as a hiding-place for our enemies. I shall bum the old sorcerer himself so that there won’t be anything left of him for the crows to pick. I wonder if he has any gold or other treasures, though. Look, that’s where the old devil lives! If he has gold... We shall soon row past some crosses — ^that’s the cemetery where the bones of his wicked forebears are rotting. I’m told all of them were ready to sell themselves to Satan for a groat—soul, and tattered old coat, and all. If he really has gold, there’s no time to lose: it’s something you can’t always get in war..."
"I know what you’re thinking of. I fear no good will come of it if you meet. But what’s the matter? Why are you breathing so hard? Why are you looking at me so fiercely? Why are you frowning on me so?"
"Hold your tongue, woman!" Danilo said angrily. ‘‘Have any- thing to do with you, and before I know where I am I’ll be talking and acting like a woman myself! I say, one of you lads, let me have a light for my pipe, will you?" he addressed one of the oarsmen, who knocked some hot ash from his pipe into his master’s. "Not trying to frighten me with a sorcerer, are you?" Danilo went on. ‘‘A Cossack, thank God, fears neither devil nor Catholic priest. Much good would it do us if we started listening to our wives. Am I not right, lads? The best wife for us is our pipe and our sharp sword!"
Katherine made no reply. She turned away and began watching the sleepy river. The wind raised a ripple on the water and the Dnieper gleamed like a wolf’s coat at night. The boat turned and kept close to the wooded bank. A cemetery came into sight; the tumbledown crosses stood huddled together. No guelder-rose grows among them, nor does green grass grow under them; the moon alone sheds its ghostly light upon them from high up in the sky.
"Do you hear the shouts, lads? Someone’s calling for our help! " said Danilo, turning to his oarsmen.
"We can hear the cries, sir. They seem to be coming from over there," the oarsmen replied in one voice, pointing to the cemetery.
But everything grew quiet again. The boat turned and began to go round the bend of the projecting bank. Suddenly the oarsmen dropped their oars and stared before them without moving. Danilo stopped, too; his blood ran cold with horror.
A cross on one of the graves swayed giddily and a withered corpse rose slowly from it. A beard to the waist; long nails on the fingers, longer than the fingers themselves. The dead man raised his hands slowly upwards. His face twitched and was twisted. One could see that he was suffering terrible agonies. "Give me air! Air!" he moaned in a wild, inhuman voice, which cut one’s heart like a knife. Then, suddenly, the dead man disappeared under the earth. Another cross swayed and again a dead man rose up from the ground, taller and more terrible than the one before. He was covered with hair all over. His beard reached to the knees, and his claws were even longer. "Give me air!" he cried still more wildly, and disappeared under the ground. A third cross swayed; a third dead man rose up. It seemed as if only bare bones rose up high over the earth. His beard reached down to his heels; the long nails of his fingers pierced the ground. Terribly did he extend his hands upwards, as if he wished to seize the moon, and he shrieked, as if someone were sawing his yellow bones.
The child, asleep in Katherine’s lap, screamed and woke up. The oarsmen let fall their caps in the river. Even Danilo himself could not suppress a shudder.
Suddenly it all vanished, as if it had never been; but it was not for some time that the oarsmen took up their oars again. Burulbash looked anxiously at his young wife, who, terrified, was rocking the screaming child on her lap, and he pressed her to his heart and kissed her on the forehead.
"Don’t be frightened, Katherine! Look, there’s nothing there!" he said, pointing in every direction. "It’s the sorcerer who wants to frighten people so that no one should go near his foul nest. He’ll scare none but women by these tricks of his! Come, let me take my son! " With these words, Danilo picked up his son and kissed him. "Well, what do you say, Ivan? You’re not afraid of any sorcerers, are you? Now say, ‘Daddy, I’m a Cossack!’ There, there; stop crying! We shall be home soon, then your mother will give you your porridge, put you to bed in your cradle, and sing:
Lullaby my own dear heart,
Lullaby my own dear darling,
Grow up, my son, to be our joy.
To be the Cossacks’ pride and glory.
And our enemies to destroy!
Listen, Katherine," he addressed his young wife; "it seems to me that your father does not want to live at peace with us. When he arrived he looked harsh and sullen, as though he were angry with us... Well, if he’s not pleased, why come at all? He would not drink to the freedom of the Cossacks. He has never dandled the baby! In the beginning I would have confided all my secrets to him, but for some reason 1 couldn’t bring myself to do it: the words stuck in my throat... No, Katherine, he hasn’t a Cossack’s heart. When Cossack hearts meet, they almost leap out of the breast to greet each other. Well, lads, how far is the bank? Don’t worry about your caps. I shall get you new ones. You, Stetsko, Fll give you one made of velvet and gold. I took it off a Tartar, together with his head. Got all his trappings, too. The only thing I let go was his soul. Well, let’s land here. Look, Ivan, we’re home and you’re still crying! Take him, Katherine!"
They all got out. From behind a hill a thatched roof came into view: that was Danilo’s family mansion. Beyond it was another hill, and beyond that the open plain, and there you might walk a hundred miles and not meet a single Cossack.
==III==
Danilo’s farmstead lay between two hills in a narrow valley that ran down to the Dnieper. His country seat was not large. His cottage looked like the cottage of any humble Cossack, and there was only one big room in it; but he and his wife and their old maidservant and ten picked young men lived there without feeling cramped. There were oak shelves high up on the walls, on which were piled bowls, pots and pans, silver goblets and drinking cups mounted in gold, both gifts and war booty. Lower down hung costly muskets, sabres, harquebuses, spears. They had come to him, willingly or un- willingly, from Tartars, Turks, and Poles. That was the reason why many of them were notched and dented. Each mark on the steel served to remind Danilo of some bitter encounter with an enemy. Along the bottom of the wall were smooth oak benches. Beside them, in front of the low stove, the cradle hung on cords from a ring fixed in the ceiling. The entire floor of the room was levelled smooth and smeared with clay. Danilo and his wife slept on the benches; the old maidservant on the low stove; the child played and was lulled to sleep in the cradle; and the fighting men slept one beside the other on the floor. But a Cossack likes best to sleep on the bare ground in the open air. He needs neither feather-bed nor pillow. He spreads a pile of fresh hay under his head and stretches at his ease upon the ground. He feels happy when on wakening in the middle of the night he looks up at the lofty sky studded with stars, and shivers at the chill of night which brings fresh vigour to his Cossack bones. Stretching and muttering through his sleep, he lights his pipe and wraps himself more closely in his warm sheep- skin.
Burulbash did not waken early after the merry-making of the night before. When he woke, he sat on a bench in a comer, sharpen- ing a new Turkish sabre he had exchanged for something or other; and Katherine set to work embroidering a silk towel with gold thread. All of a sudden Katherine’s father came in, angry and frowning, with an outlandish pipe between his teeth. He went up to his daughter and began questioning her sternly why she had come home so late the night before.
"You’d better question me and not her about such matters," said Danilo, going on with his work. "Not the wife, but the husband is Responsible. If you don’t mind, this is our way here. In some infidel country perhaps it isn’t so — ^I don’t know."
The colour came into his father-in-law’s stem face and his eyes flashed ominously.
"Who if not a father should look after his daughter?" he muttered to himself. "Well, I ask you. Where were you gadding about so late last night?"
"Ah, that’s better, dear father-in-law! I can easily answer that. You see, I am no longer a baby. I can sit on a horse. I can hold a sharp sword in my hands. And I can do something else: I can refuse to answer to any man for whatever I do!"
"I can see, Danilo, that what you want is to pick a quarrel with me. A man who has something to hide is quite certainly hatching some dastardly plot in his head."
"Think as you please," said Danilo, "and I shall think as I please. Thank God, I’ve never been a party to any dishonourable action so far. I’ve always stood up for the Orthodox faith and for my country, not like some vagabonds I know who gad about heaven knows where while good Christians are fighting to the death, and then drop from the sky to reap the harvest they have not sown. They’re much worse than the Uniats, I’m sure, for they never visit the church of God, It’s such people who should be made to give an account of themselves,"
"Ah, what a pity, Cossack, I’m such a bad shot; my bullet only pierces the heart at two hundred yards. I’m afraid I’m not much of a swordsman, either; I always leave some bits and pieces of my man behind, although it’s quite true they are not bigger than the grits they use for porridge."
"I’m ready," said Danilo, making the sign of the cross smartly in the air with his sabre, as though he knew what he had sharpened it for.
"Danilo!" Katherine cried aloud, seizing him by the arm and hanging on it. "Think what you’re doing, you madman! See against whom you’re lifting your hand! Father, your hair is white as snow, and you’re as hotheaded as a foolish boy!"
"Wife," Danilo exclaimed angrily, "you know I brook no interference I You mind your woman’s business! "
The sabres clashed terribly: steel struck against steel, and the Cossacks sent sparks flying like dust. Weeping, Katherine went to another room, flung herself upon the bed and covered her ears that she might not hear the clash of the sabres. But the Cossacks did not fight so badly that she could smother the sound of their blows. Her heart was ready to break. Each sound made by the sabres seemed to go right through her. "No, I can’t bear it; I can’t bear it... Red blood is perhaps gushing out of his body this very minute. My dear one may even now be bleeding to death, and I’m lying here! " And, pale as death, scarcely breathing, she went back.
The Cossacks fought a terrible, but well-matched battle. Neither got the better of the other. Now Katherine’s father pressed home his attack, and Danilo gave way; now Danilo attacked, and the dour old man yielded ground; and again they were equal. But their blood was up. They swung their sabres, slashing out at each other with all their might, and, wdth a noise like thunder, the blades broke off at the handles and flew out of their hands.
"I thank you, I thank you, O Lord!" cried Katherine, but she screamed again when she saw that the Cossacks picked up their muskets.
They set the flints, drew the triggers. Danilo fired and missed. Katherine’s father took aim... He was old; he could not see as well as a young man, but his hand did not falter. A shot rang out. Danilo staggered. Red blood stained the left sleeve of his Cossack coat. "No," he cried, "I shan’t sell myself as cheap as that. Not the left, but the right hand is master. There on the wall hangs my Turkish pistol; never before has it failed me. Come down from the wall, old comrade! Do your friend a service!"
Danilo stretched out his hand to take the gun.
"Danilo!" cried Katherine in despair, clutching his hands and flinging herself on the floor at his feet. "Not for myself do I beseech you. There can be only one end for me: unworthy is the wife who outlives her husband. The cold Dnieper will be my grave... But look at your son, Danilo; look at your son! Who will cherish the poor child? Who will fondle him? Who will teach him to outstrip the wind on his black stallion, to fight for faith and freedom, to drink and be merry like a true Cossack? Oh, my son, you must perish, you must perish utterly! Your father does not care for you. Look how he turns away his head. Oh, now I know you! You’re a wild beast and not a man! You have the heart of a wolf and the mind of a crafty serpent. I thought that there was a drop of pity in your veins, that there was human feeling in that heart of stone of yours! What a fool I was! I suppose it will make you happy, your bones will dance in the grave with joy, when you hear the dastardly brutes of Poles throwing your son into the flames, when your son shrieks under the knife and the burning pitch. Oh, I know you! You would be glad to rise from your grave and fan the flames under him with your cap!"
"Stay, Katherine. Come, my precious Ivan; let me kiss you! No, my child, no one shall touch a hair of your head. You shall grow up to the glory of your country; you shall fly like a whirlwind at the head of the Cossacks, with a fine velvet cap on your head and a sharp sabre in your hand. Give me your hand. Father! Let us forget our quarrel. If I have wronged you, I am sorry. Why do you not give me your hand?" said Danilo to Katherine’s father, who stood without moving, showing no sign either of anger or re- conciliation.
"Father," cried Katherine, embracing and kissing him, "please don’t be so merciless. Forgive Danilo. He will never offend you again."
"For your sake only I forgive him, daughter," he replied, kissing her, a strange glitter in his eyes,
Katherine shuddered faintly; the kiss and the strange glitter in his eyes seemed uncanny to her. She leaned her elbows on the table, at which Danilo was bandaging his wounded arm, wondering if he had done right and like a Cossack in asking forgiveness for something
==IV==
Day dawned, but there was no sunshine: the sky was overcast and a drizzling rain was falling on the fields, the woods and the broad Dnieper. Katherine woke up, but she did not feel happy: her eyes were tear-stained, and she was restless and vaguely alarmed.
"Oh, dear husband," she said, "I have had such a strange dream!"
"What kind of dream, my darling Katherine?"
"Oh, such a queer dream, and it was as plain as though it were really happening. I dreamt that my father was the very same monster whom we saw at the Captain’s house. But please don’t pay any attention to this dream. People dream all sorts of silly things! I dreamed that I was standing before him, shivering and frightened, my whole body tortured by every word he spoke. Oh, if only you had heard what he said "
"What did he say, my precious Katherine?"
" He said, ‘ Look at me, Katherine! Am I not a handsome man? People talk nonsense when they say that I am ugly. I should make you a fine husband! Look at me, Katherine! Look at my eyes I Can’t you see anything there?’ Then he looked at me with those fiery eyes of his, and I screamed and woke up."
"Yes, there’s much truth in dreams. However, do you know that things aren’t so quiet beyond the hills? I shouldn’t be surprised if the Poles didn’t show up again. Gorobetz has warned me to keep my eyes open. But he needn’t have troubled. I am not asleep as it is. My lads have been felling trees during the night and put up a dozen barricades. We shall welcome the soldiers of the Polish king with lead plums and we shall make his gentlemen dance with our sticks! "
"And Father... Does he know about this?"
"What do I care whether your father knows about it or not? I’m damned if I can make him out even now. I suppose he must have committed many sins in foreign lands. How else can you explain the way he behaves? He has lived with us for over a month and not once has he made merry like a true Cossack. He would not drink any mead! Do you hear, Katherine, he would not drink the mead I extorted from those cowardly Jews in Brest! Here, lad," exclaimed Danilo, "go down to the cellar, there’s a good fellow, and bring me some of that Jewish mead! He won’t even drink vodka! The devil take it, I do believe, Katherine, he doesn’t even believe in the Lord Jesus. Eh? What do you say? "
"The Lord forgive you, Danilo! What are you saying?"
"It certainly is strange, my dear," Danilo went on, taking the earthenware beaker from the Cossack. "Even the damned Catholics are partial to vodka. It’s only the Turks who do not drink. Well, Stetsko, did you have a good sip of mead in the cellar?"
"I just tasted it, sir."
"Tasted it, did you? You lie, you son of a dog! See how the flies have fallen upon your moustache. I bet you’ve had at least half a bucketful. I can see it in your eyes, my lad. Oh, these Cossacks! What desperate rogues! Ready to share everything with a comrade, except the bottle; they’ll drain that to the last drop themselves! You know, Katherine, it’s a long time since I was really drunk. Eh?"
"A long time indeed! Why, last . .
"All right, all right! Don’t be alarmed! I won’t drink more than a beakerful. Here’s that Turkish abbot barging through the door! " he muttered through his teeth, seeing his father-in-law stooping to get through the door.
"What’s the matter, daughter?" the father said, taking off his cap and adjusting his belt, on which hung a sabre set with precious stones. "The sun’s already high and your dinner isn’t ready!"
"Dinner’s ready, Father. It will be served in a minute. Bring the pot with the dumplings! " Katherine said to the old maid- servant, who was wiping the wooden bowls. "Wait, I’d better take it out myself," she went on. "You call the men!"
They all sat down on the floor in a ring: Katherine’s father facing the comer with the icons, Danilo on his left, Katherine on his right, and ten of Danilo’s most trusty men in blue and yellow coats.
"I don’t like these dumplings," said Katherine’s father, after eating a little, laying down the spoon. "There’s no flavour in them,"
"I daresay you like Jewish stew better," thought Danilo. "Why do you say there’s no flavour in the dumplings?" he went on aloud. "They’re not badly made, are they? My Katherine makes dumplings such as our hetman himself does not often taste. And there’s no need to despise them. It’s a Christian dish. All God’s saints and holy men have eaten dumplings."
Katherine’s father was silent. Danilo, too, kept his peace. They served wild boar with cabbage and plums.
"I don’t like pork," said Katherine’s father, helping himself to some cabbage with his spoon.
"Why don’t you like pork? " said Danilo. "It’s only Turks and Jews who do not eat pork."
Katherine’s father knit his brows, looking more angry than ever. He ate nothing but some buckwheat pudding and milk and, instead of vodka, he sipped some black liquid from a flask he kept inside his coat.
After dinner Danilo had a good sleep and only woke at dusk. He sat down at the table to write letters to the Cossack army, while Katherine sat on the low stove, rocking the cradle with her foot. As he sat there, Danilo kept his left eye on his writing and looked out of the window with his right; from the window he could see far in the distance the shining hills and the Dnieper. Beyond the Dnieper stretched the blue ridge of the woods. Overhead glimmered the clear night sky. But it was not the far-away sky or the blue woods that Danilo was admiring: he was watching the spit of land which jutted out into the river and on which the dark mass of the old castle could be made out. He thought he could see a light gleaming in the narrow little window of the castle. But all was quiet. He must have imagined it. All he could hear was the hollow murmur of the Dnieper down below and, from three sides, the resounding thuds of the waves which suddenly came to life. The river was not in its defiant mood. Like an old man, it was merely growling and grumbling. Nothing pleased it. Everything about it had changed. Softly it was waging a war against the hills, the woods and the meadows on its banks.
Now the dark outline of a boat appeared on the wide expanse of the Dnieper and again a light gleamed and disappeared in the castle. Danilo gave a low whistle, and his faithful servant ran in at the sound.
"Stetsko," said Danilo, "grab a sharp sabre and a musket and follow me! "
"Are you going out?" asked Katherine.
"Yes, I’m going out. I have to inspect everything. See that every- thing’s in order."
"But I’m afraid to be left alone. I’m so sleepy, I can’t keep awake. What if I should have the same dream again? I am not even sure it was a dream. It seemed so real."
"The old woman will be staying with you and there are Cossacks asleep in the passage and in the courtyard."
"The woman is asleep already and, somehow, I have no con- fidence in the Cossacks. Listen, Danilo. Lock me in and take the key with you. Then I shan’t be afraid. And let the Cossacks lie before the door."
"All right," said Danilo, wiping the dust oflF his musket and scattering some powder on the gun-lock.
The faithful Stetsko stood already dressed from head to foot in the Cossack harness. Danilo put on his lambskin cap, closed the window, locked and bolted the door, walked quietly out of the courtyard, threading his way among the sleeping Cossacks, and made straight for the hills.
The sky was almost completely clear again. A fresh breeze blew gently from the Dnieper. But for the distant wail of a gull, everything seemed to be dead silent. But soon his ear caught a
faint noise Burulbash and his faithful servant hid quietly behind
some bramble bushes which concealed one of the barricades of felled trees. Some one in a scarlet coat, with two pistols and a sabre at his side, was coming down the hillside.
"It’s my father-in-law," Danilo murmured, watching him from behind the bushes. "Where is he going to at this hour of the night, I wonder? And what is he up to? Don’t gape, Stetsko; keep your eyes open and see which way your mistress’s father takes! "
The man in the scarlet coat went down to the bank of the river and then turned towards the spit of land.
"I thought so," said Danilo. "Gone straight to the sorcerer’s den, Stetsko!"
"Yes, sir. Couldn’t have gone anywhere else or we should have seen him on the other side. He disappeared near the castle, sir."
"All right, let’s get out and follow him. There’s something wrong here. Well, Katherine, I warned you that your father was a wicked man. No wonder he never behaves like a true Christian."
Danilo and his trusty servant went quickly across the tongue of land. In another moment they were out of sight. The pitch- black wood around the castle hid them. A soft light appeared at the upper window of the castle. The Cossacks stood below, wondering how to reach it. They could see neither gate nor door. There must be a door in the courtyard; but how were they to get into it? They could hear in the distance the clanking of chains and the dogs running about in the yard.
"Why am I losing time?" said Danilo, seeing a big oak-tree by the window. "You stay here," he said to Stetsko, "and I’ll climb up the oak; from it I could look straight into the window."
He took off his belt, threw his sabre on the ground, so that it might not clatter, and, catching hold of some branches, lifted him- self up. There was still a light at the window. He sat down on a branch close to the window, and, holding on firmly to the tree, he peered in: there was not even a candle in the room and yet it was bathed in a soft light. There were mystic symbols on the walls. Weapons of all kinds were hanging there, but all were strange; neither Turks, nor Crimeans, nor Christians, nor the gallant Swedes ever bore such weapons. Large bats flitted to and fro under the ceiling and their shadows darted over the floor, the door and the walls. Presently the door opened without a sound. Some man in a scarlet coat walked in and went straight up to the table which was covered with a white cloth.
"It is my father-in-law," Danilo murmured, lowering himself a little and clinging closer to the tree.
But his father-in-law was too busy to look whether anyone was watching him through the window. He came in, frowning and out of humour, pulled the cloth off the table, and at once a transparent blue light spread gently through the whole room; but the waves of the pale golden light with which the room had been filled before did not mingle with the blue light, but eddied and dived as in a blue sea and spread out in streaks as though in marble. Then he set a pot on the table and began throwing some herbs into it.
Danilo peered more closely and saw that he was no longer wearing the scarlet coat; instead he was wearing a pair of wide Turkish breeches with pistols in his belt and a strange-Iooking head- dress inscribed with letters that were neither Russian nor Polish. And even as he looked at his face, his face, too, began to change: his nose grew longer and hung over his lips; in one instant his mouth stretched to his ears; a tooth peeped out from his lips and bent sideways; and he saw before him the same sorcerer who had appeared at the wedding at the Captain’s house.
"Your dream was a true dream, Katherine," Danilo thought.
The sorcerer began pacing round the table; the mystic signs on the walls were now changing more rapidly and the large bats flitted more swiftly up and down and to and fro. The blue light grew dimmer and dimmer and at last went out altogether. A tenuous rosy light now filled the room. It seemed to spread through the room to the accompaniment of the soft ringing of bells; then, suddenly, it vanished and darkness covered everything. Nothing was heard but a faint murmur like the gentle whispering of the wind in the peace- ful hours of evening as, circling over the mirror-like surface of the water, it bends the silvery willows lower and lower into the waves.
It seemed to Danilo that the moon was shining in the room and the stars were twinkling, and now and then he thought he could catch a glimpse of the dark-blue sky, and he even felt a puff of the cold evening air against his face. Then Danilo imagined (here he even pulled at his moustache to make sure he was not dreaming) that it was not the sky he could see in the room, but his own bed-chamber. There on the walls hung his Tartar and Turkish sabres; round the walls were the shelves and on the shelves the pots and bowls and goblets; on the table stood bread and salt; the cradle hung from the ceiling... But where the icons were, hideous faces stared; on the low stove... but a dense mist hid everything, and it was dark again, and once again a rosy light spread through the room to the accompaniment of the wonderful ringing of bells, and again the sorcerer stood motionless in his strange turban. The sounds grew louder and richer, the faint rosy light became brighter, and something white, like a cloud, hovered in the middle of the room. And it seemed to Danilo that the cloud was not a cloud at all, but that a woman was standing there. But what was she made of? Not of air, surely? And why did she stand there without touching the floor or leaning on anything? Why did the rosy light shine through her? Why were those dancing signs on the wall still visible? Now she moved her transparent head: her pale blue eyes shone softly; her hair fell in curls over her shoulders like a light-grey mist; her lips glowed faintly like the scarcely perceptible red glow of dawn over the white transparent morning sky; her eyebrows were just two faint dark lines... It was Katherine I Danilo felt his limbs stiffen. He tried to speak, but his lips moved without uttering a sound.
The sorcerer still stood motionless in the same place.
"Where have you been?" he asked, and the ethereal figure which stood before him trembled.
"Oh, why did you call me up?" she moaned softly. "I was so happy. 1 was in the place where I was bom and where I lived till I was fifteen. Oh, how wonderful it was there I How green and fragrant was the meadow where I used to play as a child! And the sweet wild flowers were the same as ever, and our cottage and the garden! Oh, how my dear mother embraced me! How much love there was in her eyes! She caressed me, kissed my lips and cheeks, combed my fair hair with a fine comb... Father," here she fixed her pale eyes on the sorcerer, "why did you murder my mother?"
The sorcerer shook his finger at her menacingly. "Did I bid you speak about it?" he asked, and the ethereal beauty trembled. "Where is your mistress now?"
"My mistress Katherine has fallen asleep, and I was so glad I took wing and flew away. I have yearned to see my mother for such a long time. I was suddenly fifteen again. I felt so light, like a bird. Why have you summoned me?"
"You remember all I said to you yesterday?" asked the sorcerer in so soft a voice that Danilo found it hard to catch his words.
"I remember, but what would I not give to forget it! Poor Katherine, she doesn’t know as much as her soul knows, does she?"
"It is Katherine’s soul," thought Danilo, but still he dared not stir.
"Repent, Father! Is it not terrible that after every murder you commit the dead rise up from their graves?"
"Don’t mention that to me again!" the sorcerer interrupted her menacingly. "I shall insist that you carry out my wish. I shall make you do what I want. Katherine shall love me 1 "
"Oh, you are a monster and not my father!" she moaned. "No, it shall never be as you wish. It is true that by your evil spells you have the power to summon a soul and torture it, but only God can make it do what He wills. No, never shall Katherine consent to such an ungodly deed while I am still in her body! Father, a terrible judgment is near at hand 1 Even if you were not my father, you would never make me betray my husband whom I love and who is true to me. But even if my husband was not true and dear to me, I would not be false to him, for God abominates souls who are faithless and false to their vows."
Here she fixed her pale eyes on the window under which Danilo was sitting and fell silent, still as death.
"What are you looking at? Whom do you see there?" cried the sorcerer.
The wraith of Katherine trembled violently. But already Danilo was on the ground and with his faithful Stetsko was on his way to his native hills.
"Terrible, terrible," he murmured to himself, fear gripping his Cossack heart.
He soon reached his own courtyard where his Cossacks slept as soundly as ever, all but one who sat on guard, smoking a pipe.
The sky was all studded with stars.
==V==
"Oh, I’m so glad you wakened me!" said Katherine, rubbing her eyes with the embroidered sleeve of her nightgown and observing her husband closely as he stood before her. "What a terrible dream I’ve had! I could hardly breathe. Oh, I thought I was dying! "
"What sort of dream? Not this one by any chance?" and Burulbash started telling his wife all that he had seen.
"But how did you know it?" Katherine asked in amazement when he finished his story. "But no, no! You told me many things I did not know. No, I certainly did not dream that my father had killed my mother. I did not dream anything of the dead rising from their graves, either. No, I did not dream anything of the kind. Danilo, you’re making it up. Oh, what a terrible man my father is!"
"And it is no wonder you did not see everything in your dream. You don’t know a tenth part of what your soul knows. Do you know that your father is the Antichrist? Last year when I was getting ready to go against the Crimean Tartars with the Poles (at that time those faithless people were still my allies) the Abbot of the Bratsky Monastery — and he is a holy man, my dear, if ever there was one — told me that the Antichrist had the power to summon the soul of every living man; for when the body is asleep, the soul wanders where it pleases and flies with the archangels about the abode of God. I disliked your father’s face from the first. I would not have married you, had I known what kind of a father you had. I should have left you and not taken upon my soul the sin of marrying into the Antichrist’s family."
"Danilo," Katherine said, burying her face in her hands and bursting into tears, "what wrong have I done to you? Have I been unfaithful to you, my dear husband? Why then are you so angry with me? Have I not served you truly? Have I ever said a cross word to you when you came home merry from some gay feast? Have I not borne you a black-browed son?"
"Don’t cry, Katherine. I know you now and I shall never leave you. It is not you, but your father who has sinned so grievously."
"Please, don’t call him my father! He is not a father to me! God is my witness that I disown him; I disown my father! He is the Antichrist. He has renounced God. If he were perishing, if he were drowning, I would not stretch out a hand to save him. If he were dying of thirst after eating some magic herb, I would not give him a drop of water. You are my father!"
==VI==
The sorcerer sat in a deep cellar at Danilo’s house behind a door with three locks and with iron chains on his hands and feet. In the distance above the Dnieper his devilish castle was in flames, and the waves, glowing red as blood, surged and broke against the ancient walls. But it was not for sorcery or any ungodly act that the sorcerer lay imprisoned in the deep cellar. God was his judge. It was for an act of secret treachery that he was imprisoned, for plotting with the enemies of the holy Russian soil to sell the Ukrainian people to the Catholics and burn Christian churches. The sorcerer was cast down. Thoughts black as night filled his head. He had only one more day left to live: tomorrow he would have to take leave of the world; tomorrow his punishment was awaiting him. It would be an act of mercy if he were boiled alive in a cauldron or if his sinful skin were flayed off him. The sorcerer was cast down; his head was bowed. Perhaps he was already repenting in his last hour, but his sins were not such as God would forgive him. Above him was a narrow window, interlaced with iron bars. Clanking his chains, he went up to the window to see if his daughter were passing. She was meek and gentle as a dove; she bore no malice against any man. Would she not take pity on her father? But there was not a soul to be seen. Below the window was the road; no one passed along it. Below the road was the Dnieper; but the river cared for no one: it raged and the monotonous sound of its waves made cheerless music for the prisoner.
Then someone appeared on the road. It was a Cossack. The prisoner heaved a deep sigh. Again the road was deserted. In the distance someone was coming down the hill. A woman’s coat was fluttering in the wind. A gold head-dress glittered on her head. It was she I He pressed still closer to the window. Now she was coming nearer...
"Katherine, my daughter, have pity on me! Help me, help me!"
She made no reply. She would not listen to him. She did not even turn her eyes towards the prison. She had already passed. She was gone. The whole world was empty. Dismally the Dnieper murmured. Sadness stole into the heart at that sound. But did the sorcerer know anything of such sadness?
The day was drawing to a close. The sun had set. In another moment the last gleam of light in the sky was gone. Now it was evening. It was cool. Somewhere an ox was lowing. Sounds of voices floated from somewhere: people returning from the fields and laughing happily. A boat appeared for a brief moment on the Dnieper and was gone again... No one gave a thought to the prisoner. The silver crescent gleamed in the sky. Somebody was coming along the road from the opposite direction. It was hard to tell in the darkness who it might be. It was Katherine coming back.
"Daughter, for Christ’s sake spare one glance at your guilty father. Why, even the savage wolf cubs will never tear their mother to pieces! " She paid no attention to him and walked on. "Daughter, for the sake of your unhappy mother ..." She stopped. "For the sake of your unhappy mother come here and listen to my last words!"
"Why do you call to me, you renegade? Don’t call me daughter! I have disowned all kinship with you. What do you want of me for ’ the sake of my unhappy mother?"
"Katherine, my end is near. I know that your husband means to tie me to the tail of a mare and let me be dragged along the fields until I’m dead. He may even think of a more dreadful punish* mentforme..."
"But is there a punishment in the world bad enough to atone for your sins? Prepare yourself for it; no one will intercede for you."
"Katherine, it is not the punishment that frightens me, but the torments that await me in the next world... You are innocent, Katherine. Your soul will fly in paradise near the abode of God, but the soul of your renegade father will bum in the ever- lasting fire that will never be quenched; no drop of dew will descend on it, nor will the wind breathe on it..."
"That punishment I have not the power to abate," said Katherine, turning away.
"Katherine, one more word. You can save my soul. You have no idea how good and merciful God is. You must have heard of the Apostle Paul, what a great sinner he was, but afterwards he repented and became a saint."
"What can I do to save your soul?" said Katherine. "It is not for a weak woman like me to think of it! "
"If only I could get out of here, Fd give up everything. I will repent. I will retire to a cave, put on a rough hairshirt, and spend day and night in prayer. I will give up not only meat, but I will not even taste fish. I shall sleep on bare boards, and I shall pray, pray all the time. And if God in His great mercy will not forgive even a hundredth part of my sins, I’ll bury myself up to the neck in the earth, or immure myself into a stone wall. I will take neither food nor drink, and I shall die. All my treasures I will distribute among the monks that they may sing a requiem for me for forty days and forty nights."
Katherine thought it over. "Even if I unlocked the door," she said, "I couldn’t possibly take off your chains."
"My chains!" he said scornfully. "You think they have chained me hand and foot, don’t you? Oh, no. I threw a mist over their eyes and held out a dry piece of wood instead of hands. Here, have a look: there is not a chain on me now!" he said, stepping into the middle of the cellar. "Even these walls would not have stopped me and I would have gone through them. But your husband does not know what walls these are. They were built by a holy hermit and no evil power can release any one from this prison without unlocking the doors with the very same key with which the saint used to lock his cell. Just such a cell I shall build for myself, great sinner that I am, when I am free again!"
"Listen, I will let you out; but what if you deceive me?" said Katherine, stopping before the door. "What if, instead of repenting, you again become the devil’s own accomplice?"
"No, Katherine. I have not long to live. My end is near even if I am not put to death. Do you really believe I shall consign myself to eternal perdition?"
The locks rattled. "Farewell, my dear child. May the merciful God keep and preserve you! " said the sorcerer, kissing her.
"Don’t touch me, you abominable sinner! Go, go quickly!" said Katherine.
But he was no longer there.
"I let him out," moaned Katherine, terror-stricken and looking wildly at the walls. "What shall I say to my husband now? I am undone. I’d better bury myself alive!" And bursting into tears, she almost fell on the block on which the prisoner had been sitting. "But I have saved his soul," she said softly. "I have done a good deed which cannot but please God. But my husband ... I have deceived him for the first time. Oh, how terrible! How hard it will be to lie to him! Someone’s coming. . . It is he! My husband! " she exclaimed in despair and fell senseless on the ground.
==VII==
"It’s me, you poor darling! It’s me, my sweet child!" Katherine heard when she came round.
She looked up and saw her old maidservant. The old woman was bending over her, muttering something, and, stretching out her withered hand, sprinkled cold water over her.
"Where am I?" Katherine said, sitting up and looking round her. "I can hear the Dnieper in front of me and behind me I can see the hills. Where have you brought me, you old hag?"
"I haven’t brought you anywhere. I took you out of that stuffy old cellar, I did. Locked it up with the key so that you don’t get into trouble with your husband Danilo."
"But where is the key?" said Katherine, looking at her girdle. "I can’t see it."
"Why, my poor child, your husband has taken it off to have a look at the sorcerer."
"At the sorcerer? Oh dear, I’m undone!" Katherine cried.
"May the Lord preserve us from such a calamity, my poor darling. Just keep quiet and no one will know anything about it."
"He’s escaped, the cursed Antichrist! Do you hear, Katherine, he has escaped! " said Danilo, coming up to his wife.
His eyes blazed angrily; his sabre shook and rattled at his side. Katherine was paralysed with fear.
"Has someone let him out, dear husband?" she asked in a shaking voice.
"He has been let out all right! The devil has let him out! Look, a log is chained to the wall instead of him. Oh, why did not God make the devil fear a Cossack’s strong hands? If any of my Cossacks had only thought of doing it and I got to know about it... I’d find no punishment bad enough for him! "
"And if I . . The words were out of Katherine’s lips before she knew what she was saying, and she stopped, aghast.
"If you had taken it into your head to do such a thing, you’d no longer be my wife. I’d have sewn you up in a sack and drowned you in the middle of the Dnieper! "
Katherine caught her breath and she felt her hair stand on end.
==VIII==
At a roadside inn near the frontier the Poles had gathered, and for the past two days they had been carousing there. The inn overflowed with the vermin. They had met, no doubt, for some raid. Some had muskets; spurs were jingling, sabres rattling. The Polish gentlemen made merry and bragged, told tales about their mar- vellous feats of arms, mocked at the Orthodox Christians, called the Ukrainian people their serfs, twirled their moustaches with an air of importance, and with the same arrogant air sprawled on the benches, their noses turned up. They had a Catholic priest among' them. He drank and revelled with them and uttered obscene speeches with his foul mouth. The servants were no better than their masters. They turned back the sleeves of their tattered coats and strutted about, as if they were persons of some importance. They played cards, and struck each other on the nose with the cards. They had brought with them other men’s wives. Shrieks, fights... The Polish gentlemen, too, ran wild and played all sorts of silly tricks: they pulled the Jewish innkeeper by the beard, painted a cross on his impious brow, fired blank shots at the women, and danced the Cracovienne with their blaspheming priest. Even the Tartars had never behaved in so disgraceful a manner on Russian soil. God must have willed it that Russia should suffer such indignities for her sins! In the general hubbub people could be heard talking of Danilo’s homestead beyond the Dnieper and of his beautiful wife.
The band of cut-throats were not there for any good!
==IX==
Danilo sat at the table, his head propped up on his hand, thinking. Katherine sat on the low stove, humming a song.
"I don’t know why, but I’m feeling sad, Katherine," said Danilo. "My head aches and my heart aches. Oh, Fm so weary, weary! I think my death must be near."
"Why don’t you come and put your head on my bosom, dear husband? Why do you harbour such black thoughts?" Katherine thought, but she dared not speak her thoughts aloud. She was too conscious of her guilt to accept her husband’s caresses.
"Listen, Katherine," said Danilo, "promise me not to desert our son when I am gone. God will never grant you any happiness either in this world or in the next if you forsake him. Hard will it be for my bones to rot in the damp earth, but harder still will it be for my soul."
" What are you saying, dear husband? Was it not you who laughed at us, weak women? And now you talk like a weak woman yourself. It’s much too early for you to talk of death! "
"No, Katherine, I feel that I have not long to live. I don’t know, my life is no longer what it used to be. Everything is so sad. Oh, the years of my adventurous youth, how they come back to me! But they have gone for good, never to return. He was living then, the pride and glory of our army, old Konashevich, the Ukrainian hetman! I can still see those Cossack regiments, as though they were passing before my eyes now. Oh, what a glorious time it was, Katherine, what a glorious time! The old hetman sitting on a black horse, his golden mace gleaming in his hand, the soldiers of his regular army standing around him and the red sea of the Dnieper Cossacks astir on every side! The hetman began to speak and every man in that vast army of foot and horse stood still as if rooted to the ground. The old man wept when he told us of the old days and battles of long ago. Oh, if you only knew, Katherine, how valiantly we fought the Turks in those days 1 You can still see the scar on my head which I received in those battles. Four bullets pierced me in four places, and not one of the wounds has quite healed. The gold we took in those days! The Cossacks filled their caps with precious stones. What horses, Katherine, oh, what fine horses we drove away with us in those days! Never, never shall I fight like that again! Not that I have grown old or that my body has grown feeble, but the Cossack sword drops out of my hand. There seems nothing more left for me to do, and I don’t know what I live for. There is no order in the Ukraine: the colonels and the captains fight each other like dogs. There is no recognised chieftain over them all. Our gentry are aping the Polish fashions and they have also grown crafty as the Poles. They have even sold their souls, accepting the Uniat faith. The Jews are oppressing the poor... Oh, those days, those days, the days that are gone! Where are you, the years of my youth? Here, lad, go to the cellar and bring me a jug of mead. Let me drink to the happy times that have gone and to the years that will never come back!"
"How shall we receive our guests, sir? The Poles are approaching from the direction of the meadow!" said Stetsko, entering the room.
"I know what they are coming for," said Danilo, rising from his seat. "Saddle the horses, my faithful followers! Put on your harness! Out with the sabres! Don’t forget your rations of lead! We must prepare a great welcome for our guests! "
But before the Cossacks had time to mount their horses or load their muskets, the Poles covered the hillside as leaves from the trees cover the groxmd in autumn.
"Oho, there are certainly enough of them here to avenge our injuries!" cried Danilo, looking at the fat Polish gentlemen, who were swaying haughtily on their gold-hamessed horses in the front ranks of the advancing Poles. "It seems that once again I shall be having good sport! Make the best of it, Cossack soul, for the last time. Enjoy yourselves, lads! This is the day we’ve been waiting for!"
Oh, what sport there was in the hills! What gay revelry! The swords were gambolling, the bullets flying, the horses neighing and prancing. The shouting dazed the brain, the smoke blinded the eye. Everything was in confusion. But a Cossack knew unfailingly where his friend or where his enemy was. A bullet whistled and a gallant rider dropped from the saddle; a sabre flashed and a head rolled in the dust, muttering incoherent words.
But the red top of Danilo’s cap could always be seen in the crowd; the golden belt on his blue coat gleamed bright; the mane of his black stallion fluttered in the breeze. He darted hither and thither like a bird, exhorting his followers, waving his Damascus sabre, and cutting down the enemy right and left. Cut them down, Cossack! Have a merry time, Cossack! Cheer your brave heart! Don’t look at the gold trappings and the rich coats: trample underfoot the gold and jewels! Spear them, Cossack! Have a merry time, Cossack! But look back! The godless Poles are already setting fire to the cottages and driving away the frightened cattle. And like a whirl- wind Danilo turned round, and the cap with the red top was darting now near the cottages and the crowd round him was fast dwindling.
For many hours the Poles fought with the Cossacks. There were not many left of either. But Danilo showed no signs of slackening: with his long spear he knocked Poles out of their saddles and his mettlesome horse trampled more of the enemy underfoot. His courtyard was almost cleared of the enemy; the Poles were taking to their heels; the Cossacks were beginning to strip the dead of their gold coats and rich trappings; Danilo was about to set off in pursuit of the beaten enemy and looked round to call his men — when suddenly he flew into a terrible rage: for he caught sight of Katherine’s father. There the sorcerer stood on the top of a hill, aiming his musket at him. Danilo urged his horse straight towards him... Cossack, you go to your doom I... There came the crack of a shot, and the sorcerer vanished behind the hill. Only the faithful Stetsko caught a glimpse of the scarlet coat and the strange hat. The Cossack staggered and fell to the ground. The faithful Stetsko rushed to his master, but his master lay stretched on the ground, his bright eyes closed. The dark-red blood spurted from his breast, but he must have become aware of his faithful servant’s presence, for he raised his eyelids and there was a gleam of recog- nition in his eyes, "Farewell, Stetsko. Tell Katherine not to forsake her son, and don’t you, my faithful servants, forsake him, either!" He fell silent. His gallant soul flew from his noble body; his lips turned blue. The Cossack slept, never to awaken.
His faithful servant burst out sobbing and waved a hand to Katherine.
"Come, my lady, come. Your master has had a drop too much. Here he lies on the damp earth, drunk as a lord. It’ll be a long time before he’s sober again!’*
Katherine wrung her hands and fell like a sheaf of com on the dead body.
"Oh, my husband, is it you lying here with closed eyes? Get up, my dearest darling; stretch out your sweet hand! Stand up! Please, look at your Katherine just for once. Open your lips, say just one little word to me! But you’re silent, you’re silent, my noble lord! You have turned blue like the Black Sea. Your heart beats no more. Why are you so cold, dear husband? Are not my tears hot enough to warm you? Is not my weeping loud enough to wake you? Who will lead your regiments now? Who will ride like a whirlwind on your black steed? Cry in a mighty voice and wave a sabre in front of the Cossacks? Oh, Cossacks, Cossacks! Where is your pride and glory? Your pride and glory is lying with closed eyes on the damp earth. Bury me in the same grave as him, bury me with him, I pray! Heap earth upon my eyes! Press the maple boards upon my white breasts! I need my beauty no more!"
Katherine wailed and mourned; but a cloud of dust was rising over the road in the distance: old Captain Gorobetz was galloping to the rescue.
==X==
The Dnieper is beautiful on a calm day when it glides along in full flood, unconstrained and unruffled, through woods and hills. There is not a ripple; not a sound. You look and you cannot tell whether its majestic expanse is moving or not moving, and you almost fancy that it is all made of glass and that, like a blue, mirror- surfaced road, measureless in breadth and endless in length, it winds and twists over a green world. On such a day even the bright sun likes to have a peep at it from its great height and dip its hot beams into its cool glassy waters; and the woods along the banks appear to enjoy nothing better than to see themselves reflected in its waves. Smothered in green foliage, they, and the wild flowers, too, crowd together along the margin of the flowing waters and, bending over, gaze into them, never for a moment tiring of this pastime, never for a moment averting their admiring, radiant glances from the stream, and they smile at it and they greet it, waving their branches. But they dare not look into the Dnieper in midstream; none but the sun and the blue sky gaze into it there. Rarely will a bird fly as far as that. Glorious one! There is no river like it in the world.
Beautiful, too, is the Dnieper on a warm summer night when every living creature is asleep — ^man, beast, and bird. God alone majestically surveys heaven and earth and majestically shakes His robe of gold and silver, scattering a shower of stars. The stars shine and twinkle over the world and are all reflected together in the Dnieper. The mighty river finds room for them all in its dark bosom. Not one star will escape it, unless indeed it is extinguished in the sky. The black woods, dotted with sleeping crows, and the moun- tains, rent asunder long ago, which overhang the flowing river, try their utmost to cover it up, if only with their long shadows, but in vain! Nothing in the world could cover up the Dnieper. Blue, deep, deep blue, it flows on and on in a smooth flood at midnight as at midday, and it can be seen far, far away, as far as the eye of man can reach. Playfully snuggling up to the banks, as if seeking for warmth in the chill of the night, it leaves a silvery trail behind, gleaming like the blade of a Damascus sword; but the river, the deep blue river, falls asleep again. The Dnieper is beautiful even then, and no river in the world is like it. But when dark clouds scud like uprooted mountains across the sky, when the black woods sway wildly and are bent to their roots, when the mighty oak is riven asunder, and lightning, zigzagging through the clouds, suddenly lights up the whole world — then the Dnieper is truly terrible. The mountainous billows roar as they dash themselves against the hills, and when, flashing and moaning, they rush back, they wail and lament in the distance. So the old mother of a Cossack laments when she sees off her son as he leaves for the army. A high-spirited, but good lad, he rides off on his black stallion, arms akimbo and cap at a rakish angle; but she, sobbing, runs after him, seizes him by the stirrup, catches his bridle, and wrings her hands over him, shedding bitter tears.
Among the contending waves weird, dark shapes of burnt tree- stumps and boulders can be seen on the projecting tongue of land. And a boat is dashed against the bank, rising and falling as it comes in. What Cossack was so reckless as to take out a skiff when the old Dnieper was raging? Did he not know that the river swallows men like flies?
The boat reached the bank, and out of it stepped the sorcerer. He looked unhappy; bitterly did he resent the funeral the Cossacks had given their slain master. The Poles, too, had paid heavily: forty-four Polish gentlemen in their costly armour and rich coats and thirty-three serfs were left cut to pieces on the battlefield, while the rest were captured with their horses, to be sold to the Tartars.
The sorcerer went down some stone steps between the burnt tree-stumps to a small hut he had dug deep in the earth. He went in softly without making the door creak, put a pot on the table that was covered with a cloth and began throwing some magic herbs into it with his long hands; he then took a pitcher made of some rare wood, scooped up some water with it, and poured it into the pot, moving his lips and muttering some incantations. The room was filled with a rosy light. In this light his face looked horrible: it seemed covered with blood except where the deep wrinkles left lines upon it, and his eyes seemed to blaze with an infernal fire. Villainous sinner! His beard was grey, his face lined with wrinkles; he was all shrivelled, yet he still persevered in his godless design. A white cloud hovered in the room, and something like joy gleamed in his face. But why did he stand rigid all of a sudden with gaping mouth, not daring to stir? Why did the hair of his head stand up? A strange face appeared in the cloud; unbidden and un- invited, it had come to his subterranean home. As the minutes passed, its features grew more and more distinct and its motionless glance more penetrating. The features — eyebrows, eyes, lips — were unfamiliar to him. Never before had he seen them. Nor was there anything fear-inspiring about that face, and yet it filled him with horror. The strange unfamiliar face gazed upon him from the cloud, steadily, unblinkingly. The cloud had vanished, and yet the unfamiliar features of that face showed up more sharply than ever, and the piercing eyes looked hard at him. The sorcerer turned white as a sheet. He uttered a wild scream and overturned the pot,.. The vision vanished.
==XI==
"Do not worry, dear sister," said old Captain Gorobetz; "dreams seldom come true."
"Lie down, my dear," said his young daughter-in-law. "I’ll fetch a wise woman: no evil power can withstand her. She will drive your fears away."
"Fear nothing," said his son, grasping his sabre. "No one shall hurt you."
Sombrely and with dull eyes Katherine looked at them, not knowing herself what to say. "I have brought this misfortune upon myself," she thought. "It was I who let him out." At last she said: "He gives me no peace. Here I have been ten days with you in Kiev, but I am as unhappy as ever. I thought that at least I would be able to bring up my son in peace to avenge his father’s death, but... Oh, if you knew how terrible he looked when he appeared to me in a dream! God grant you will never see him! My heart is still pounding. ‘Fll kill your son, Katherine,’ he shouted, ‘if you do not marry me!"’ and, bursting into tears, she rushed to the cradle, and the frightened child stretched out its little hands and cried.
The Captain’s son boiled with rage when he heard these words and his eyes flashed with anger.
Captain Gorobetz could no longer contain himself. "Let him try coming here, the accursed Antichrist. He’ll soon find out if there is still any strength left in an old Cossack’s hands. God is my witness," he said, lifting up his keen eyes, "that I hastened to Danilo’s help as soon as I learnt of his plight, but I came too late. It was God's will no doubt that I should find him on his cold bed upon which many, aye, many Cossacks have been laid. But, come, don’t you think we gave him a worthy funeral? And did we let a single Pole escape with his life? So calm yourself, my dear child. So long as I am alive, or my son, no man will dare harm you!"
Having finished speaking, the old Cossack went up to the cradle, and the child, seeing his red pipe, set in silver, and his pouch with the glittering flints, hanging from a strap, stretched out his arms towards him and laughed.
"He takes after his father," said the old Captain, taking off the pipe and giving it to the child. "He’s not out of the cradle, but he already wants to smoke a pipe!"
Katherine sighed softly and began rocking the cradle. They agreed to spend the night together, and after a short time they were all asleep. Katherine, too, fell asleep.
All was quiet in the courtyard and the cottage. Everyone slept except the Cossacks who were keeping watch. Suddenly Katherine woke with a scream, and the others woke, too.
"He’s dead I He’s been murdered!" she cried and rushed to the cradle.
All surrounded the cradle and they were paralysed with horror when they saw that the child in it was dead. Not a sound did any of them utter, not knowing what to think of so shocking a crime.
==XII==
Far from the Ukraine, beyond Poland and the populous city of Lemberg, there rise range upon range of immense mountains. Mountain after mountain, they encompass the earth to the right and to the left, as if with chains of stone, and box it up with a wall of rock to protect it from encroachment by the wild and turbulent sea. These mountain ranges stretch into Wallachia and across the Semigrad region, and their enormous pile stands like a horse-shoe between the Galician and the Hungarian peoples. We have no such mountains in our country. The eye is quite powerless to survey them; and on some of their summits no human foot has ever trod. Their aspect is quite amazing: had, one wonders, the frolicsome sea broken away from its wide shores in a storm and thrown up its monstrous waves to a tremendous height, and had they then turned to stone and remained motionless in the air? Or had the heavy stormclouds come tumbling from the sky and blocked up the earth? For they, too, are grey, and their white crests flash and sparkle in the sun.
Until you reach the Carpathian mountains, you may still hear Russian speech, and even beyond the mountains you may here and there hear echoes of our native tongue, but beyond neither speech nor faith is the same. The country there is inhabited by the numerous Hungarian people, and they, too, ride, fight and drink like so many Cossacks; nor are they niggardly with the golden coins in their pockets for their horses’ harness or costly coats. There are great and wide lakes among the mountains. They are as still as glass and, like glass, they reflect the bare mountain-tops and their green slopes below.
But who rides through the night on a huge black horse whether the stars shine or not? Who is this giant of superhuman stature who gallops over the mountains, above the lakes, who is reflected with his gigantic horse in the still waters, and throws his vast and terrifying shadow across the mountains? His chased coat of mail glitters; across his shoulder is a pike; his sword clatters against his saddle; his helmet is tilted up; his moustaches are black; his eyes are closed; his eyelashes are drooping — he is asleep! And, asleep, he holds the reins. Behind him sits a young page, and he, too, is asleep, and even in his sleep he holds on to the giant. Who is he? Whither rides he? And why? Who knows? Not one day nor two has he been riding over the mountains. Day breaks, the sun rises, and he is seen no more. Only from time to time do the mountain- people notice a large shadow flitting over the mountains while the sky is clear and no cloud passes across the sun. But as soon as night descends and darkness falls, he becomes visible again and is reflected in the lakes and, quivering, his shadow gallops after him. He has crossed many mountains, and at last he rides up to the top of Krivan. There is no mountain in Carpathia higher than this one. It towers like a monarch over the other mountains. There the rider and his horse stop. The knight sinks into an even deeper slumber and the clouds descend and hide him from view.
==XIII==
"Hush, woman; don’t make such a noise! My baby’s asleep. My son cried a long time and now he is asleep. I’m going for a walk in the woods now... What are you looking at me like that for? Oh, how hideous you look: iron pincers are coming out of your eyes! Such long pincers, too, and they are red hot! You must be a witch! Go away, go away, if you are a witch 1 You will steal my son! How ridiculous that old Cossack Captain is! He thinks I like living in Kiev. No, my husband and my son are here. And, besides, who’s going to look after our cottage? I went out so quietly that neither the dog nor the cat heard me. Would you like to grow young again, old woman? It isn’t a bit hard: all you have to do is to dance. Like that. See? Just as I’m dancing. . . And, having uttered those incoherent sentences, Katherine, her arms akimbo and looking wildly about her, began to dance. With a shriek she tapped with her feet, her silver heels beating spasmodically and out of time. Her black plaits came undone and tossed wildly about her white neck. She darted about the room without stopping, like a bird, waving her hands and nodding her head, and it seemed that she must either collapse on the ground from sheer exhaustion or fall dead.
The old nurse stood mournfully, tears rolling down her wrinkled face; the hearts of the faithful Cossacks were heavy as they looked at their mistress. At last she became exhausted and went on tapping languidly with her feet on the same spot, in the belief that she was dancing the slow Ukrainian turtle-dove dance.
"I have a lovely necklace, boys," she said at length, stopping. "You haven’t got one, have you?... Where’s my husband?" she screamed suddenly, drawing a Turkish dagger from her girdle. " Oh, this is not the knife 1 need I " she said, tears gushing out of her eyes and her face becoming overcast by a great sadness. " My father’s heart is far away: it will not reach it. His heart is wrought of iron. It was forged by a witch in the fire of hell. Why doesn’t my father come? Doesn’t he know it is time he was stabbed to death? I suppose he expects me to go for him. , . ." And, breaking off, she laughed queerly. "Listen, I’ve just remembered such a funny thing: I’ve remembered how my husband was buried. He was buried alive, you know. Oh, it did make me laugh... Listen, listen! " And instead of speaking, she began to sing:
The cart on the road is covered in blood.
In the cart a brave Cossack’s lying;
They cut him down and shot him, and now he’s dying.
In his right hand a spear he’s holding,
A river of blood from that spear’s flowing.
Over the river a plane-tree’s growing,
Above the plane-tree a raven’s croaking.
 mother for the Cossack’s weeping.
Don’t weep, Mother, tears you ne’er need shed.
For your son a pretty lady’s wed,
A pretty lady, a young bride.
In a field a little cottage stands,
Without doors and without casements long,
And that’s the end of my song...
A crayfish with a fish was dancing,
If you don’t love me, your mother in an ague’ll be shaking!
It was such fragments of songs that she strung together in a medley of words.
For the past few days she had been living in her cottage. She would not hear of Kiev; she would not say her prayers; and she shunned everybody. From morning till night she wandered about the dark woods. Sharp twigs scratched her white face and shoulders; the wind tousled her loose plaits; the dead leaves rustled under her feet — ^she looked at nothing. At the hour when the glow of sunset fades from the sky, but before the stars have appeared or the moon is up, people are afraid to walk in the woods. Unbaptised children claw at the trees and clutch at the branches, sobbing and laughing, turn somersaults on the roads and the wide patches of nettles. Maidens who have drowned themselves in the Dnieper and whose souls are for ever damned come out of its waves in shoals; their hair streams from their green heads over their shoulders; with a loud ripple the water pours from their long hair to the ground; and a maiden shines through the water as though through a crystal dress; her lips smile enigmatically, her cheeks blaze, her eyes enchant the soul: she looks as if she might pine away with love, as if she might kiss her lover to death... Run, Christian! Her lips are ice, her bed — the cold water, her caress deadly: she will drag you into the river. But Katherine looked at no one; in her frenzy she did not fear the water maidens. She ran about with her knife far into the night, searching for her father.
In the early morning a visitor arrived, a handsome man in a scarlet coat, and he inquired after Danilo. He heard their story, wiped the tears from his eyes with his sleeve and shook his head. He said he had fought side by side with Burulbash; side by side they had engaged in mortal combat with the Crimean Tartars and the Turks. Never had he thought that Danilo would meet with such an end. The visitor told them many other things and expressed a wish to see Katherine.
At first Katherine would not listen to anything the visitor told her. But by and by she began to listen to his speeches as though she understood them perfectly. He told her how Danilo and he had lived together like brothers, how once they had hidden under a dam from the Crimeans... Katherine listened and did not take her eyes off him.
"She will recover," the Cossacks thought, looking at her. "This man will cure her! She is listening like one who has already recovered her senses!"
Meanwhile the visitor began describing how Danilo once in confidence had said to him, "Look here, Kuprian. If by the will of God I should die, you take Katherine for your wife..."
Katherine gave him a piercing look. "Ah," she shrieked, "it is he! It is my father!" and she sprang at him with her knife.
For a long time he struggled to snatch the knife from her; at last he did snatch it away, raised it — and a terrible deed was done: the father killed his crazed daughter.
The thunderstruck Cossacks rushed at him, but the sorcerer had already leapt upon his horse and vanished out of sight.
==XIV==
Outside the city of Kiev an extraordinary miracle happened. All the gentlemen and the hetmans flocked to witness it: suddenly it became possible to see far away to the ends of the earth. Afar could be seen the blue waters of the mouth of the Dnieper, and beyond that the Black Sea was plainly visible. Men who had travelled in foreign lands recognised the Crimea, rising like a mountain out of the sea, and the marshy Sivash. On the right could be seen the Galician land.
"And what’s that?" people asked the old men, pointing to the white and grey crests, which loomed far away in the sky, looking more like clouds than anything else.
"Those are the Carpathian mountains!" replied the old men, "Among them there are some that are covered with eternal snow, and the clouds cling to them and spend the night there."
Then a new miracle happened: the clouds which hid the summit of the highest mountain dispersed and on it appeared a horseman in full knightly armour, with his eyes closed. He was plainly visible to all, as though he were only a few yards away.
It was then that one man among that marvelling and frightened multitude leapt on a horse and, looking wildly about him, as though afraid that he might be pursued, he quickly rode off at a gallop. That was the sorcerer. Why was he so panic-stricken? Looking in terror at the strange knight, he recognised the face which had appeared to him unbidden while he was working his spells. He could not have said why he was filled with such dismay at this sight; and, looking apprehensively about him, he rode madly on until he was overtaken by night and the stars began to come out. Then he turned homewards, perhaps to ask the Evil One what that miracle meant. He was just about to leap with his horse over a narrow stream, which ran right across his path, when his horse suddenly stopped in full career, looked round at him and — ^wonder of wonders! — laughed aloud, both rows of teeth gleaming uncannily in the darkness. The sorcerer’s hair stood on end. He uttered a wild scream, wept like one possessed, and turned his horse towards Kiev.
He felt that he was being pursued on all sides. The trees that surrounded him like a dark forest shook their beards and stretched forth their long branches, as though alive, trying to strangle him; the stars seemed to be running ahead of him and pointing to the sinner; the road itself seemed to be racing after him.
The frantic sorcerer hurried to the holy places in Kiev.
==XV==
A hermit sat atone in his cave before a dimly burning lamp, and he did not take his eyes off the holy book. He had retired to his cave many years ago and he had already made himself a cofiin in which he lay down to sleep instead of a bed. The holy man closed his book and began to pray... Suddenly a man of a strange and terrible aspect ran into his cave. The holy man was startled at first at the sight of such a man and he drew back from him. He was trembling all over like an aspen leaf. His eyes rolled wildly and blazed with panic. His misshapen face made one shudder.
"Father, pray! Pray!" he shouted desperately. "Pray for a lost soul!" and he sank to the ground.
The holy hermit crossed himself, took up his book, opened it and, drawing back in horror, dropped it. "There is no mercy for you, terrible sinner that you are! Go, I cannot pray for you I"
"No?" the sinner cried, distraught.
"Look, the holy letters in the book are dripping with blood... There has never been such a sinner in the world!"
"Father, you are mocking me!"
"Go, accursed sinner! I am not mocking you. I am overcome with fear. It is not good for a man to be with you! "
"No, no. You are mocking. Don’t pretend... I see you’re laughing at me! I can see your old teeth gleaming white!"
And, mad with fury, he sprang at the old hermit and — killed him.
A deep moan rose in the cave and it echoed through the woods and the fields. From behind the woods a pair of gaunt, withered arms with long claws rose in the air, trembled and disappeared.
And now he felt no fear. He felt nothing. Everything was confused. His ears rang, his head spun round as though he were drunk, and everything before his eyes seemed covered with spiders* webs. He leapt upon his horse and rode straight for Kanev, intending to ride from there through Cherkassy direct to the Crimean Tartars, although he hardly knew himself why. He rode one day and another and still Kanev was not in sight. He was on the right road and he ought to have reached it long ago, but there was no sign of Kanev. In the distance he could see the gleaming cupolas of churches. But that was not Kanev. It was Shumsk. The sorcerer was amazed to find himself in quite a different part of the country. He turned back towards Kiev and a day later a city appeared. It was not Kiev, though, but Galich, a city more distant from Kiev than Shumsk. At a loss what to do, he again turned back, but he had the curious feeling that he was still riding in the opposite direction, and always farther and farther away from where he wanted to go. No one in the world could tell what was in the sorcerer’s mind; if anyone had seen and known what was there, he would never again have had a quiet night’s sleep, neither would he have laughed again for the most of his life. It was not spite, or anger, or fierce resentment. There is no word in the world to describe it. His blood boiled; he was mad with rage; he would have gladly trampled upon the whole world with his horse, seized the whole country from Kiev to Galich, with all the people and everything in it, and drowned it in the Black Sea. But it was not from spite or malice that he would do it. No, he did not know himself why he wished to do it.
A cold shudder ran through his veins when he saw the Carpathian mountains quite near him, and lofty Krivan capped with grey cloud. His horse still galloped on and was already racing among the mountains. The clouds suddenly lifted, and there before him was the horseman in all his terrible majesty... The sorcerer tried to stop; he tugged at the rein; his horse neighed wildly and, its mane flying, it continued to race towards the horseman. As he saw the motionless horseman stir and suddenly open his eyes, the sorcerer felt everything die within him. But when the dreadful knight saw the sorcerer racing towards him, he laughed, and his wild laugh echoed like thunder through the mountains and resounded in the sorcerer’s heart, shaking him to the very core of his being. He felt as if some mighty creature had crawled into him and was walking within him, hammering away at his heart and veins ... so dreadfully did that laugh resound in him!
The horseman seized the sorcerer with his mighty hand and lifted him into the air. In a trice the sorcerer was dead. He opened his eyes after his death, but he was dead and gazed like a dead man. Neither the living nor the risen from the dead have such a terrible look in their eyes. He rolled his dead eyes from side to side and saw dead men rising up from Kiev, from Galicia and the Carpathian mountains, and they all looked like him.
Pale, terribly pale, one taller than another, one bonier than another, they thronged round the horseman who held his awful prey in his hand. Once more the knight laughed and then he dropped the sorcerer down into the abyss. And all the dead men leapt into the abyss, seized the dead man as he was falling and fastened their teeth into him. Another, taller and more terrible than the rest, tried to rise from the ground, but he could not, for he had not the strength to do it, so huge had he grown in the earth; and if he had risen out of the earth he would have overturned the Carpathian mountains, and the whole of the Semigrad and Turkish lands. He only moved a little and he set the whole earth in a tremor, and many cottages were overturned and many people crushed to death.
A roar is often heard in the Carpathian mountains as if a thousand water-mills were churning up the water with their wheels. It is the sound of dead men gnawing a dead man in the bottomless abyss which no living man has ever seen, for no man dares to go near it. It sometimes happens that the earth trembles from one end to the other: that is, learned men will tell you, because there is a mountain somewhere near the sea from which flames issue and fiery streams flow. But the old men who live in Hungary and Galicia know better and they say it is the dead man who has grown so huge in the earth, trying to rise and shaking the earth.
==XVI==
A large crowd gathered round a bandore-player in the town of Glukhov, and for the past hour they had been listening to the blind man’s playing. No bandore-player sang so well or such wonder- ful songs. First he sang about the rule of the hetmans, of Sagaydachny and Khmelnitzky, the famous chieftains of the Dnieper Cossacks. Times were different then: the Cossacks were at the height of their glory, they trampled their foes underfoot, and no one dared to hold them up to scorn. The old bandore-player sang merry songs, too, and he turned his sightless eyes upon the crowd as though he could see, and his fingers, with the little sheaths of bone fixed to them, darted about like flies over the strings and the strings seemed to play by themselves; and the people, old men with their eyes fixed upon the groxmd and young men with their eyes staring at the old singer, dared not even whisper to one another.
"Now," said the old man, "I will sing you about what happened long, long ago."
The people pressed closer and the old man began:
"In times long past when Stephen, famed far and wide as Prince of Semigrad, was king of the Poles, two gallant Cossacks, Ivan and Petro, lived together in amity and love like brothers. ‘Whatever you, Ivan, in battle or raid shall obtain, we shall divide in equal parts; when good fortune smiles upon you, I, too, shall be merry; but when dire misfortune befalls one of us, then we both shall share it; if one of us gains rich booty in battle, it shall be shared between us; if the cruel foe takes one of us captive, the other shall sell his goods and chattels for ransom, or else himself go into captivity.’ And so it came to pass that whenever they seized cattle and horses from strangers, each of them received his equal share.
"It so fell out that when King Stephen waged war against the Ottoman, he could never prevail in battle, although for three full weeks he stoutly fought the infidel hordes. The Sultan had a Pasha who with only ten of his janissaries put to flight a whole regiment of Poles. The king therefore proclaimed that if a man should be found among his troops who, singlehanded, should bring that Pasha to him dead or alive, he would, as recompense, receive the entire pay of his army. ‘Come, brother, let us take the Pasha prisoner,’ said Ivan to Petro. So the two Cosacks set oif, one one way, one the other.
"Whether or not Petro would have captured the Pasha, there is no telling, but meanwhile Ivan led the Pasha to the king with a rope round his neck. ‘Brave fellow!’ said King Stephen, and he com- manded that Ivan alone be given the pay of the whole army. The king also ordered that Ivan be given any land he might desire, wheresoever it might chance to be, and as many heads of cattle as he should wish. No sooner did Ivan receive the king’s reward than he gave half of it to Petro. Petro took his half, but the honour Ivan received from the king rankled in his breast, and in his heart the thought of revenge was planted deep.
"The two knights rode off to take possession of the land beyond the Carpathians that the king had granted to Ivan. The Cossack Ivan had set his little son behind him on the horse, tying him for safety with a rope passed round his own waist. Dusk fell, but they continued on their way. The young child fell asleep; Ivan, too, began to doze. Do not slumber, Cossack, the mountain paths are treacherous! But the Cossack’s horse is endowed by nature with a sixth sense, and he can find his way in darkness wherever he may happen to be; nor will he stumble or step off the path. There is an abyss between the mountains, a bottomless chasm, unplumbed by man; as many miles as there are between heaven and earth, are also between the top and the bottom of that great chasm. A narrow path skirts perilously the chasm’s edge, so narrow a path that two people can barely ride abreast upon it, but three never. Warily the horse picked his way along that perilous path with the slumbering Cossack on his back, and Petro, in a quiver of excitement and breath- less with joy, rode beside him. He looked round, cast a glance into the chasm and thrust his sworn brother over the edge. Horse and Cossack and small child hurtled to their doom together.
"But in his fall the Cossack chanced to grasp a branch, and the horse alone fell to the bottom of the abyss. With his son on his back, Ivan started on his dangerous ascent up the treacherous slope of the precipice; but barely had he reached the top when, looking up, he saw Petro pointing his pike at him to push him back over the precipice. ‘Just and merciful Heaven,’ Ivan cried, ‘far better I had never lifted my eyes than that I had seen my own brother holding his pike ready to thrust me back to my destruction. Stab me, dear brother, stab me with your pike, if God so wills that I should perish here, but spare my child! Take him! Take him, I implore you, for what has an innocent child done to deserve such a cruel death?’ But Petro laughed and thrust at him with his pike. Cossack and child fell to the bottom of the chasm. Petro seized his brother’s land and cattle and lived like a lord for the rest of his human span. No man had such droves of horses as he, nor flocks of sheep and rams. And Petro died.
"No sooner was Petro dead than God summoned the souls of the two brothers to appear for judgment before His throne. ‘This man, O Ivan,’ said God, ‘is so great a sinner that it will take me too long to choose a Tit punishment for him. Choose thou his proper punishment thyself!’ Ivan pondered long what punishment to choose. At length he said, ‘This man has done me a great injury, like Judas, he betrayed his brother; he brought my honourable line to an end and robbed me of all hope of posterity. For a man without an honourable line and without progeny is like a seed that falls upon the ground and perishes in the earth; there is no green shoot to tell the whole world that a seed has been dropped there.
"Therefore, O Lord, make it so that no issue of his loins may Imow happiness on earth. Let, I beseech Thee, the last man of his line be the wickedest man on earth, and let each wicked deed of his disturb the peace of his fathers and forefathers in their graves, and, suffering torments unknown in the world before, let them rise from their tombs! But let Judas Petro not have the strength to rise and let him thereby suffer worse torment, and may he bite the earth like one possessed, and may he writhe in agony beneath the ground.
"And when the hour of retribution comes, when the villainous career of that evil man has in full measure been consummated, raise me, O Lord, from that deep abyss on to the highest mountain, where I may sit mounted on my stallion, and let him come to me, and from that mountain I shall hurl him into the deepest abyss, and let all his dead, all his ancestors, come creeping from every comer of the earth, wherever they lived in their lifetime, to that abyss to gnaw his bones and so repay him for the torments his crimes had made them suffer, and may they gnaw him for ever and for ever. Thrice happy will I be to watch his sufferings! But do not let Judas Petro ever rise from under the ground; let him strive in vain to gnaw the bones of his great-great-grandchild, but let him instead gnaw his own bones, which, growing longer and longer as the years pass, shall make his pains more unbearable still. This will, I am Sure, be the worst torture for him, for greater torment knows no man than to long for vengeance, but to be powerless to avenge.’
"Terrible is the punishment thou hast devised, O man,’ said God, ‘but be it as thou hast spoken; but thou too shalt sit on that mountain-top for ever, and never shalt thou enter the Kingdom of Heaven whilst thou sittest there on thy horse! ’ And so it befell as it was spoken, and to this very day the wondrous knight, horsed and accoutred, stands on the highest peak of the Carpathian mountains, watching dead men gnawing the bones of a dead man in the bottomless abyss, and feeling how a dead man’s bones are growing larger and larger under the earth, and how he, suffering dreadful agonies, gnaws at his own bones and sets the whole earth shaking fearfully..."
The blind man had long finished his song and he began again thrumming the strings, singing amusing rhymes of Khoma and Yeryoma and Sklyara Stokoza; but his listeners, old and young, did not heed him, and for a long time they stood with bowed heads, their thoughts still full of the dreadful events that happened in the days long gone by.
----
Credited to Nikolai Gogol. Translation by David Magarshack.
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==Short movie==
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Category:Historical Archive/PD