Terrible revenge... Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. I The end of Kiev is noisy, thundering: Esaul Gorobets celebrates the wedding of his son. Many people came to visit the Esaul. In the old days they loved to eat well, even better they loved to drink, and even better they loved to have fun. The Zaporozhian Mikitka also arrived on his chestnut horse straight from a riotous drinking binge from Altering the fields, where he watered the royal gentry with red wine for seven days and seven nights. The named brother of the Esaul, Danilo Burulbash, also arrived from the other bank of the Dnieper, where, between two mountains, was his farm, with his young wife Katerina and his one-year-old son. The guests marveled at the white face of Mrs. Katerina, black like German velvet, eyebrows, elegant cloth and a blue half-cloth underclothes, boots with silver horseshoes; but they were even more amazed that her old father had not come with her. For only a year he lived in Zadneprovye, and twenty-one disappeared without a trace and returned to his daughter when she was already married and gave birth to a son. He probably would have said a lot of wondrous things. But how can you not tell, having been in a foreign land for so long! Everything is different there: the people are not the same, and there are no churches of Christ ... But he did not come. The guests were offered dumplings with raisins and plums and korovai on a large platter. The musicians began to work on his underside, baked together with the money and, having quieted down for a while, put cymbals, violins and tambourines near them. Meanwhile the young ladies and young women, wiped by their sewn handkerchiefs, emerged again from their ranks; and the boys, clutching at their sides, proudly looking at the sides, were ready to rush towards them - just as the old esaul brought out two icons to bless the young. Those icons came to him from the honest schema-monk, Elder Bartholomew. Utensils are not rich in them, neither silver nor gold burns, but no unclean force dares to touch the one with whom they are in the house. Lifting the icons up, the esaul prepared to say
short prayer ... when suddenly the children playing on the ground screamed out in fright, and after them the people backed away, and everyone pointed with fear with their fingers at the Cossack who was standing in their midst. Who he was - no one knew. But he had already danced to the glory of the Cossack and had already managed to amuse the crowd that surrounded him. When the Esaul raised the icons, his whole face suddenly changed: his nose grew and bent to the side, instead of karykh, green eyes jumped, lips turned blue, his chin trembled and sharpened like a spear, a fang ran out of his mouth, a hump rose from behind his head, and the Cossack became - the old man. "It's him! this is it! “shouted in the crowd, hugging each other closely. “The sorcerer has appeared again!” Cried the mothers, grabbing their children in their arms. Majestically and dignifiedly, the esaul stepped forward and said in a loud voice, setting icons against him: "Get lost, the image of Satan, there is no place for you!" Let's go, let's go and rustle like the sea in bad weather, talk and talk among the people. “Who is this sorcerer?” Asked young and unprecedented people. “There will be trouble!” Said the old ones, turning their heads. And everywhere, throughout the wide courtyard of the esaul, they began to gather in small groups and listen to stories about the wonderful sorcerer. But almost everyone spoke differently, and probably no one could tell about him. A barrel of honey was rolled out into the yard and buckets of walnut wine were placed quite a bit. Everything cheered up again. The musicians burst out; girls, young women, dashing cossacks, in bright zhupans, rushed. Ninety and hundred-year olds, having played around, began to dance to themselves, remembering the years that were not in vain. They feasted until late at night, and feasted in a way that no longer feasts. The guests began to disperse, but few wandered in their own way: a lot remained to spend the night at the Cauldron in the wide courtyard; and even more the Cossacks fell asleep on their own, uninvited, under the benches, on the floor, near the horse, near the bite; where the Cossack's head swayed from the hops, there it lies and snores all over Kiev. II Shines quietly around the world. That month appeared from behind the mountain. As if with a damask road and white as snow, it covered the mountainous bank of the Dnieper with muslin, and the shadow went even further into the thicket of pines. An oak floated in the middle of the Dnieper. Two lads are sitting in front; black Cossack hats are sideways, and under the oars, as if from a flint fire, spray is flying in all directions. Why don't the Cossacks sing? They do not talk about how the xenzas are already walking around the Ukraine and re-baptizing the Cossack people into Catholics; nor about how the horde fought at Salt Lake for two days. How to sing, how to talk about dashing deeds: their master Danilo became thoughtful, and the sleeve of a crimson zupan sank from an oak tree and draws water; their lady Katerina quietly sways the child and does not take her eyes off him, and water is falling down on the elegant cloth, which is not covered with linen, like gray dust. Anyone to look from the middle of the Dnieper at
high mountains, to wide meadows, to green forests! Those mountains are not mountains: they have no soles, below them, as well as above, there is a sharp peak, and under them and above them there is a high sky. Those forests that stand on the hills are not forests: they are the hair that grows on the shaggy head of the forest grandfather. Under her, a beard is washed in the water, and under the beard, and above the hair, the high sky. Those meadows are not meadows: it is a green belt that girdles the round sky in the middle, and a month walks in the upper half and in the lower half. Pan Danilo does not look around, he looks at his young wife. “What, my young wife, my golden Katerina, has gone into sorrow?” - “I did not go into sorrow, my pan, Danilo! I was frightened by the wonderful stories about the sorcerer. They say that he was born so scary ... and none of the children from childhood wanted to play with him. Listen, Pan Danilo, how terribly they say: that everything seemed to him, that everyone was laughing at him. Would he meet on a dark evening with some person, and it immediately seemed to him that he was opening his mouth and showing his teeth. And the next day that man was found dead. It was wonderful to me, I was scared when I listened to these stories, “said Katerina, taking out a handkerchief and wiping the face of a child who was sleeping in her arms with it. Leaves and berries were embroidered on the scarf by her in red silk. Pan Danilo did not say a word, and began to glance at the dark side, where far from behind the forest an earthen rampart was blackened, from behind the rampart an old castle rose. Three wrinkles were cut at once above the eyebrows;
left hand stroked a young mustache. “It’s not so scary that the sorcerer” he said, “how, it’s scary that he is an unkind guest. What kind of a whim had come to drag himself here? I heard that the Poles want to build some kind of fortress to cut our way to the Cossacks. Let it be true ... I'll sweep the damn nest if only word spreads that he has a brothel of some kind. I will burn the old sorcerer so that the crows will have nothing to peck at. However, I think he is not without gold and all kinds of goods. This is where this devil lives! If he has gold ... We will now sail past the crosses - this is a cemetery! here his unclean grandfathers rot. They say that they were all ready to sell themselves for money to Satan with a soul and stripped zhupans. If he certainly has gold, then there is nothing to hesitate now: it is not always possible to get it in a war ... "" I know what you are up to. Meeting him does not bode well for me. But you breathe so hard, you look so sternly, your eyes are so sullenly drawn over with eyebrows! .. "" Be quiet, baba! "Danilo said with a heart. “Whoever contacts you will become a woman himself. Boy, give me fire in the cradle! “Then he turned to one of the oarsmen, who, having knocked hot ash out of his cradle, began to transfer it to his master’s cradle. “He scares me with a sorcerer!” Continued Pan Danilo. “Kozak, thank God, is not afraid of devils or ksenz. It would be a lot of good if we obeyed wives. Isn't that right, lads? our wife is a cradle, and a sharp saber! “Katerina fell silent, her eyes downcast into the sleepy water; and the wind rippled the water, and the whole Dnieper was silvery like a wolf's hair in the middle of the night. The oak turned and began to keep to the wooded bank. A cemetery could be seen on the shore: dilapidated crosses huddled in a pile. Neither viburnum grows between them, nor the grass turns green, only a month warms them from the heights of heaven. “Do you lads hear the screams? Someone is calling us for help! “Said Pan Danilo, turning to his rowers. “We hear screams, and it seems from the other side,” the lads said at once, pointing to the cemetery. But everything was quiet. The boat turned and began to bend around the protruding bank. Suddenly the rowers lowered their oars and fixed their eyes motionlessly. Pan Danilo also stopped: fear and cold cut into the Cossack's veins. The cross on the grave staggered, and a dried-up dead man quietly rose from it. Beard to the waist; the claws on the toes are long, even longer than the fingers themselves. He quietly raised his hands up. His face quivered and twisted. Apparently, he endured a terrible torment. “It's stuffy to me! stuffy! “he moaned in a wild, not human voice. His voice, like a knife, scratched at the heart, and the dead man suddenly went underground. Another cross swayed, and again a dead man came out, even more terrible, even higher than the previous one; all overgrown; a knee-length beard and even longer bony claws. He shouted even more wildly: "Stuffy to me!" And went underground. The third cross staggered, the third dead rose up. Bones alone seemed to rise high above the ground. Beard to the very heels; long-clawed fingers dug into the ground. He terribly stretched out his hands up, as if he wanted to get a month, and screamed as if someone had begun to saw through his yellow bones ... The child who was sleeping in Katerina's arms screamed and woke up. The lady herself cried out. The rowers dropped their hats into the Dnieper. The pan himself shuddered. Everything suddenly disappeared, as if it had never happened; however, for a long time the lads did not take up the oars. Burulbash looked caringly at the young wife, who in fright was shaking the screaming child in her arms; pressed her to his heart and kissed her forehead. “Don't be alarmed, Katerina! Look: there is nothing! “He said, pointing to the sides. “This sorcerer wants to frighten people so that no one gets to his unclean nest. Bab only one he will scare it! Give me a son here in my arms! "At this word, Pan Danilo raised his son up and raised to his lips:" What, Ivan, are you not afraid of sorcerers? No, tell me, father, I'm a Cossack. Stop crying! come home! We will come home - the mother will feed the porridge; will put you to sleep in the cradle, sing: Lyuli, Lyuli, Lyuli! Lyuli, son, lyuli! Grow up, grow up into fun! To the Cossacks for glory, to the Vorozhenkam in reprisal! “Listen, Katerina, it seems to me that your father does not want to live in harmony with us. He arrived gloomy, stern, as if angry ... Well, he is unhappy, why should he come. I didn’t want to drink to the Cossack’s will! did not shake the child in his arms! At first I wanted to believe him everything that lies on my heart, but does not take something, and the speech stuttered. No, he does not have a Cossack heart! Cossack hearts, when they meet where, how will they not be knocked out of the chest to meet each other! What, my any lads, is the shore soon? Well, I'll give you new hats. To you, Stetsko, I will give it lined with velvet and gold. I took it off along with the head of the Tatar. All of his shell went to me; I only set his soul free. Well, dock! Here, Ivan, we have arrived, and you are still crying! Take it, Katerina! “Everyone went out. A thatched roof appeared from behind the mountain; then the grandfather's mansion of Pan Danil. Behind them there is still a mountain, and there is already a field, and there you go even a hundred miles, you will not find a single Cossack. III Pan Danil's farm between two mountains in a narrow valley running down to the Dnieper. His mansions are not high: a hut in appearance, like that of ordinary Cossacks, and there is only one room in it; but there is where to fit there for him, and his wife, and the old servant, and ten chosen fellows. Oak shelves surround the walls at the top. Bowls and pots for a meal are densely placed on them. Among them there are silver cups, and cups set in gold, donations and obtained in the war. Expensive muskets, sabers, squeaks, spears hang below. Willingly and unwillingly, they passed from the Tatars, Turks and Poles; not a little, but learned. Looking at them, Pan Danilo seemed to recall his fights by the icons. Under the wall, below, there are smoothly hewn oak benches. Near them, in front of the couch, a cradle hangs on ropes threaded into a ring screwed to the ceiling. Throughout the whole room, the floor is smoothly killed and smeared with clay. Pan Danilo sleeps on the benches with his wife. On the couch there is an old maid. In the cradle, a small child is amused and lulled. Good fellows spend the night on the floor. But it is better for the Cossack to sleep on smooth ground with a free sky. He does not need a down jacket or a feather bed. He pushes fresh hay under his head and stretches freely on the grass. He has fun, waking up in the middle of the night, looking at the high, star-studded sky and shivering from the night cold, which brought freshness to the Cossack bones. Stretching and muttering through his sleep, he lights the cradle and wraps himself tighter in a warm casing. Burulbash did not wake up early after yesterday's fun; and waking up, he sat down on a bench in the corner and began to sharpen a new Turkish saber, which he had exchanged; and Mrs. Katerina began to embroider a silk towel with gold. Suddenly, Katherine's father came in, angry, frowning, with a cradle from overseas in his teeth, proceeded to his daughter and sternly began to question her: what is the reason that she returned home so late. “About these cases, father-in-law, not her, but ask me! Not the wife, but the husband is responsible. This is already the way it is with us, do not be angry! “Danilo said, not leaving his work. “Maybe in other unfaithful lands this does not happen - I don’t know.” The color appeared on the stern face of the father-in-law and the eyes flashed wildly. “Who, if not the father, should look after his daughter!” He muttered to himself. “Well, I'm asking you: where did you go until late at night?” “But this is the case, dear father-in-law! To this I will tell you that I have long since come out of those who are swaddled by women. I know how to ride a horse. I know how to hold a sharp saber in my hands. I can also do something else ... I know how not to give anyone an answer in what I do. " “I see, Danilo, I know you want a quarrel! The one who is hiding must have a bad deed on his mind. " “Think to yourself what you want,” Danilo said: “I also think to myself. Thank God, I have not been in any other dishonest deed; always stood for the Orthodox faith and the motherland; not like other tramps, they drag themselves around, God knows where, when the Orthodox fight to the death, and then descend upon to clean up the crop they have not sown. They do not even look like Uniates: they will not look into the Church of God. Such people should be interrogated in the order where they are carried. " “Eh, Cossack! Do you know ... I shoot badly: in just a hundred fathoms my bullet pierces the heart. I hack it unenviable: from a person there are pieces that are smaller than cereals, from which porridge is cooked. " “I'm ready,” said Pan Danilo, briskly crossing the air with a saber, as if he knew what he had carved it for. “Danilo!” Katerina shouted loudly, grabbing his hand and hanging on it: “Remember, madman, look at whom you are raising your hand! Daddy, your hair is white as snow, and you flared up like an unreasonable lad! "" Wife! "Pan Danilo shouted menacingly:" You know, I don't like this. Know your business! “The sabers sounded terrible; iron chopped iron, and the Cossacks sprinkled themselves with sparks, as if dust. With a cry, Katerina went into a special room, threw herself into bed and covered her ears so as not to hear the saber blows. But the Cossacks did not fight so badly that it was possible to drown out their blows. Her heart wanted to be torn to pieces. Throughout her body, she heard sounds passing: thud, thud. “No, I cannot bear it, I won’t bear it ... Maybe already scarlet blood is gushing from
white body ... Maybe now my dear is exhausted; and I'm lying here! “And all pale, barely catching her breath, entered the hut. The Cossacks fought evenly and terribly. Neither one nor the other overcomes. Here comes Katherine's father - Pan Danilo is served. Pan Danilo comes - a stern father is served, and again on a par. They are boiling. Swung ... wow! sabers clink ... and, thundering, the blades flew off to the side. “Thank you, God!” Said Katerina and screamed again when she saw the Cossacks take up their muskets. We fixed the flints, cocked the hammers. Pan Danilo shot, missed. Father is aiming ... He is old; he sees not so keenly as the young one, but his hand does not tremble. The shot rang out ... Pan Danilo staggered. Scarlet blood dyed the left sleeve of the Cossack zupan. “No!” He shouted: “I will not sell myself so cheaply. Not the left hand, but the right chieftain. A Turkish pistol hangs on my wall: he has never cheated on me in his entire life. Get off the wall, old comrade! show your friend a favor! “Danilo held out his hand. “Danilo!” Cried out in despair, grabbing his hands and throwing herself at his feet, Katerina: “I am not praying for myself. I have one end: that unworthy wife who lives after her husband; Dnieper, cold Dnieper will be my grave ... But look at my son, Danilo, look at my son! Who will warm the poor child? Who will love it? Who will teach him to fly on a black horse, fight for will and faith, drink and walk like a Cossack? Get lost, my son, get lost! Your father does not want to know you! Look how he turns his face away. O! I know you now! you are a beast, not a man! You have a wolf's heart, and the soul of a crafty reptile. I thought that you had a drop of pity, that in your stone body, a human feeling burns. I was insanely deceived. It will bring you joy. Your bones will dance in the coffin with joy when they hear how the wicked beasts Poles will throw your son into the flame, when your son screams under the knives and sprinkles. Oh, I know you! You would be glad to get up from the coffin and fan the fire that swirled under him with a hat! ”“ Wait, Katerina! go, my beloved Ivan, I will kiss you! No, my child, no one will touch your hair. You will grow up to the glory of the fatherland; like a whirlwind you will fly in front of the Cossacks, with a velvet cap on your head, with a sharp saber in your hand. Give, father, your hand! Let's forget the past between us. What I did wrong before you, I blame. Why don't you give your hand? “Danilo said to Katerina's father, who stood in one place, not expressing either anger or reconciliation on his face. “Father!” Cried Katerina, embracing and kissing him: “don't be implacable, forgive Danila: he won't grieve you anymore! “For you only, my daughter, I forgive!” He answered, kissing her and flashing strange eyes. Katerina shuddered a little: both the kiss and the strange shine of her eyes seemed strange to her. She leaned her elbows on the table, on which Pan Danilo was bandaging his wounded hand, changing his mind about what he had done badly and not like a Cossack, asking for forgiveness, not being guilty of anything. IV A day flashed, but not sunny: the sky was gloomy and thin rain was sown on the fields, on the forests, on the wide Dnieper. Madame Katerina woke up, but she was not happy: her eyes were crying, and she was all vague and restless. “My dear husband, dear husband, I had a wonderful dream!” “What kind of dream, my any lady Katerina?” , which we saw at the Cauldron. But please don’t believe the dream. What nonsense is not seen! It was as if I was standing in front of him, trembling all over, afraid, and my veins moaned from every word of him. If you had heard what he said ... "" What did he say, my golden Katerina? "" He said: look at me, Katerina, I'm good! People are wrong to say that I am bad. I will be a nice husband to you. Look how I look with my eyes! Then he turned his eyes of fire at me, I screamed and woke up. " “Yes, dreams tell the truth a lot. However, do you know that beyond the mountain it is not so calm. Almost Poles began to look out again. Gorobets sent me to tell me not to sleep. It is in vain that he only cares; I can't sleep anyway. My lads that night cut down twelve notches. We will treat the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with plums of lead, and the gentry will also dance from the batogs. " “Does my father know about this?” “Your father is sitting on my neck! I still can't figure it out. It is true that he committed many sins in a foreign land. Well, in fact, for a reason: he has lived for about a month and at least once amused himself, like a good Cossack! Didn't want to drink honey! do you hear, Katerina, I didn’t want to drink honey, which I knocked out at the Brest Jews. Hey, lad! “Shouted Pan Danilo. “Run, kid, to the cellar, and bring the Jew honey! The burner doesn't even drink! What an abyss! It seems to me, Madame Katerina, that he does not believe in the Lord Christ either. A! what do you think? "" God knows what you are saying, Pan Danilo! " Turks alone do not drink. What, Stetsko, did you take a lot of honey in the basement? "" I just tried it, sir! "" You're lying, son of a dog! see how the flies attacked the mustache! I can see in my eyes that I had half a bucket. Eh, Cossacks! what a dashing people! everything is ready for a friend, and he will dry the intoxicated one himself. I, Mrs. Katerina, have already been drunk for a long time. Huh? "" That's a long time! but in the past ... "" Do not be afraid, do not be afraid,
more mugs I will not drink! And here is the Turkish abbot getting in the door! “He said through clenched teeth, seeing his father-in-law bending down to enter the door. “And what is it, my daughter!” Said the father, removing the cap from his head and straightening the belt on which hung a saber with wonderful stones: “the sun is already high, but your dinner is not ready.” “Dinner is ready, Father, we’ll set it up now! take out the pot of dumplings! "said Mrs. Katerina to the old servant, who was wiping
wooden dishes... "Wait, I'd better take it out myself," Katerina continued: "and you call the lads." All sat on the floor in a circle: opposite the pokut, Pan Father, on the left, Pan Danilo, on
right hand Mrs. Katerina and ten of the most faithful fellows, in blue and yellow zupans. “I don’t like these dumplings!” Said Father, after eating a little and putting down a spoon: “There’s no taste!” “I know that you better have Jewish noodles,” Danilo thought to himself. “Why, father-in-law,” he continued aloud: “you say that there is no taste in dumplings? Badly done, or what? my Katerina makes dumplings in such a way that the hetman rarely gets to eat such. And there is nothing to disdain about them. This is a Christian food! All holy people and saints of God ate dumplings. " Not a word father; Pan Danilo also fell silent. Fried wild boar with cabbage and plums was served. “I don’t like pork!” Said Katherine's father, spooning out the cabbage with a spoon. “Why not love pork?” Said Danilo. "Some Turks and Jews do not eat pork." The father frowned even more severely. The old father ate only one lemishka with milk and drew some black water instead of vodka from a flask in his bosom. After dinner, Danilo fell asleep in a valiant sleep and woke up only around the evening. He sat down and began to write sheets for the Cossack army; and Mrs. Katerina began to swing the cradle with her foot, sitting on the couch. Pan Danilo is sitting, looking with his left eye at the writing, and with his right eye at the window. And from the window the mountains and the Dnieper shine far away. Forests turn blue beyond the Dnieper. The clearing night sky flashes from above; But Pan Danilo admires not the distant sky and not the blue forest: he is looking at the protruding promontory, on which the old castle was blackened. It seemed to him that a narrow window in the castle flashed with fire. But everything is quiet. It must have seemed to him. One can only hear how the Dnieper is making a dull noise below and from three sides, one after the other, the blows of instantly awakened waves are heard. He doesn't rebel. He, like an old man, grumbles and grumbles; everything is not pleasant to him; everything changed around him; he quietly quarrels with the coastal mountains, forests, meadows and brings a complaint against them to the Black Sea. Here on the wide Dnieper the boat turned black and in the castle something seemed to flash again. Danilo whistled quietly, and the faithful lad ran out to the whistle. “Take a sharp saber and a rifle with you, Stetsko, but follow me!” “Are you coming?” Asked Mrs. Katerina. “I'm coming, wife. We need to look at all the places to see if everything is in order. " “I, however, am afraid to be alone. I am so sleepy. What if I dream the same thing? I'm not even sure if it was exactly a dream, it happened so vividly. " “The old woman remains with you; and in the hallway and in the yard the Cossacks are sleeping! ”“ The old woman is already asleep, but the Cossacks cannot believe something. Listen, Pan Danilo, lock me in the room and take the key with you. I won't be so scared then; and let the Cossacks lie in front of the door. " “Let it be so!” Said Danilo, dusting the rifle and pouring gunpowder onto the shelf. The faithful Stetsko was already standing dressed in all the Cossack harness. Danilo put on a fur hat, closed the window, bolted the door, locked it and quietly walked out of the courtyard between his sleeping cossacks into the mountains. The sky was almost all cleared. A fresh wind blew slightly from the Dnieper. If it were not for the groaning of a seagull from afar, then everything would seem numb. But then there was a rustle ... Burulbash, with his faithful servant, quietly hid behind the thorns that covered the felled notch. Someone in a red zhupan, with two pistols, with a saber at his side, was descending from the mountain. “This is a father-in-law!” Said Pan Danilo, looking at him from behind a bush. “Why and where should he go at this time? Stetsko! do not yawn, look in both eyes, where the father will take the road. " A man in a red zhupan went down to the very shore and turned towards a protruding promontory. "A! that's where! “said Pan Danilo. "What, Stetsko, because he just dragged himself to the sorcerer in the hollow." “Yes, that's right, not to another place, Pan Danilo! otherwise we would have seen him on the other side. But he disappeared near the castle. " “Wait, let's get out, and then we'll follow the trail. There is something in there. No, Katerina, I told you that your father is an unkind person; that's not how he did everything, like the Orthodox. " Pan Danilo and his faithful boy have already flashed on the protruding bank. Now they are no longer visible. The impenetrable forest that surrounded the castle hid them. The upper window glowed quietly. Cossacks are standing below and thinking how to get in for them. There are no gates or doors to be seen. There must be a passage from the yard; but how to get there? From afar, the chains clatter and the dogs run. “What have I been thinking for a long time!” Said Pan Danilo, seeing a tall oak in front of the window: “stay here, little one! I will climb the oak; from it you can look directly into the window. " Then he took off his belt, threw down his saber so that it would not ring, and, grabbing the branches, he climbed up. The window was still glowing. Sitting on a branch, near the window, he clung to a tree with his hand, and looked: there was no candle in the room, but it was shining. There are wonderful signs on the walls. Weapons are hanging, but everything is strange: neither the Turks, nor the Crimeans, nor the Poles, nor the Christians, nor the glorious Swedish people wear this. Bats flicker back and forth under the ceiling, and their shadow flickers along the walls, along the doors, along the platform. Here the door opened without skipping. Someone in a red zhupan enters and goes straight to the table covered with a white tablecloth. This is it, this is the father-in-law! Pan Danilo sank a little lower and pressed closer to the tree. But he has no time to look whether someone is looking out the window or not. He came overcast, out of sorts, pulled the tablecloth off the table - and suddenly a transparent blue light spilled over the whole room. Only the unmixed waves of the former pale gold shimmered, dived, as if in a blue sea, and stretched in layers, as if on marble. Then he put a pot on the table and began to throw some herbs at it. Pan Danilo began to peer and did not notice a red zhupan on him; instead of that, wide trousers appeared on him, such as those worn by the Turks; pistols in the belt; on his head there is some kind of wonderful hat, covered all over with not Russian or Polish grammar. He looked into the face - and the face began to change: the nose stretched out and hung over the lips; the mouth sounded from ear to ear in a minute; the tooth looked out of his mouth, bent over to the side, and the same sorcerer who had appeared at the wedding of the Esaul stood in front of him. “Your dream is true, Katerina!” Thought Burulbash. The sorcerer began to walk around the table, the signs began to change faster on the wall, and the bats flew faster up and down, back and forth. The blue light became less frequent, less frequent, and seemed to be completely extinguished. And the room lit up with a thin pink light. It seemed that with a quiet ringing a wonderful light was pouring in all corners, and suddenly it disappeared and became darkness. There was only noise, like the wind in
quiet hour in the evenings he played, circling on the water mirror, bending the silver willows even lower into the water. And it seems to Pan Danila that the moon is shining in the little room, the stars are walking, the dark blue sky flickers vaguely and the cold night air smelled even in his face. And Pan Danila fancies (here he began to feel his mustache, if he was asleep) that it was no longer the sky in the parlor, but his own bedchamber: his Tatar and Turkish sabers were hanging on the wall; shelves near the walls, household dishes and utensils on the shelves; there is bread and salt on the table; a cradle hangs ... but instead of images scary faces peep out; on the couch ... but the thickened fog covered everything, and it became dark again, and again with a wonderful ringing the whole light room shone with a pink light, and again the sorcerer stood motionless in his wonderful turban. The sounds grew stronger and thicker, the thin pink light grew brighter, and something white, like a cloud, wafted in the middle of the hut; and it seems to Pan Danila that the cloud is not a cloud, that a woman is standing; just what is it made of: is it woven out of thin air? Why is it standing and not touching the ground, and not leaning on anything, and pink light shines through it and signs flash on the wall? Here she somehow moved her transparent head: her pale blue eyes glow quietly; her hair curls and falls over her shoulders like a light gray mist; the lips turn pale scarlet, as if the barely perceptible scarlet light of dawn is pouring through the white-transparent morning sky; the eyebrows darken faintly ... Ah! this is Katerina! Then Danilo felt that his limbs were bound; he struggled to speak, but his lips moved without a sound. The sorcerer stood motionless in his place. “Where have you been?” He asked, and the woman in front of him trembled. "O! why did you call me? ”she moaned softly. “I was so happy. I was in the very place where I was born and lived for fifteen years. Oh, how good it is there! How green and fragrant is the meadow where I played as a child: the wildflowers are the same, and our hut, and our vegetable garden! Oh, how my good mother hugged me! What love is in her eyes! She niggled me, kissed my lips and cheeks, combed my blond braid with a fine comb ... Father! "Then she stared at the sorcerer with pale eyes:" Why did you stab my mother! "Menacingly the sorcerer shook his finger. “Did I ask you to talk about it?” And the airy beauty trembled. "Where is your lady now?" I have long wanted to see my mother. I was suddenly fifteen years old. I became all light, like a bird. Why did you summon me? "" Do you remember everything that I told you yesterday? "Asked the sorcerer so quietly that he could hardly hear. "I do remember; but whatever I give, just to forget it. Poor Katerina! she does not know much of what her soul knows. " "This is Katherine's soul," thought Pan Danilo; but still did not dare to move. “Repent, father! Isn't it scary that after each murder of yours the dead rise from the graves? “I’ll bet on my own, I’ll make you do what I want. Katerina will love me! .. "" Oh, you are a monster, not my father! "She moaned. “No, it won't be your way! True, you took by your unclean charms the power to summon the soul and torment it; but God alone can make her do what he pleases. No, never Katerina, as long as I hold on to her body, will not decide on a godly deed. Father, close
last judgment! If you were not my father, and then you would not have forced me to cheat on my any faithful husband. If my husband had not been faithful and dear to me, and then I would not have betrayed him, because God does not love perjured and unfaithful souls. " Then she gazed her pale eyes into the window under which Pan Danilo was sitting, and stood motionless ... “Where are you looking? Whom do you see there? “Cried the sorcerer; the airy Katerina trembled. But already Pan Danilo had been on earth for a long time and made his way with his faithful Stetsk to his mountains. “Scary, scary!” He said to himself, feeling a kind of shyness in the Cossack's heart, and soon he passed his courtyard, in which the Cossacks slept just as soundly, except for one who was sitting on the watchman and smoking a cradle. The sky was all sown with stars. V “How well you did to wake me up!” Said Katerina, rubbing her eyes with the sewn sleeve of her shirt and looking from head to toe at her husband standing in front of her. "Which
nightmare I saw! How hard my chest breathed! Wow! .. it seemed to me that I was dying ... "" What a dream, isn't it this? "And Burulbash began to tell his wife everything he had seen. “How did you know that, my husband?” Asked Katerina, amazed. “But no, I don’t know much from what you are telling. No, I never dreamed that my father would kill my mother; no dead, I saw nothing. No, Danilo, that's not how you talk. Oh, how terrible my father is! "" And it is no wonder that you did not see much. You do not know even a tenth of what the soul knows. Do you know that your father is Antichrist? Even last year, when I was going with the Lyakhs to the Crimeans (then I was still holding the hand of this unfaithful people), the abbot of the Bratsk monastery told me - he, his wife, a holy man - that the Antichrist has the power to call the soul of every person; and the soul walks of its own accord when he falls asleep, and flies with the archangels near the Lord's room. The first time I saw your father's face. If I knew that you have such a father, I would not marry you; I would have thrown you and would not have taken sin on my soul, having become related to the Antichrist tribe. " “Danilo!” Said Katerina, covering her face with her hands and sobbing: “Am I guilty of what in front of you? Have I cheated on you, my dear husband? How did you bring your anger upon yourself? Was it wrong to serve you? Did you say the opposite word when you were tossing and turning drunk with a good-looking revelry? Didn't you give birth to a black-browed son? .. "" Don't cry, Katerina, I know you now and I won't leave you for anything. All sins lie with your father. " “No, don't call him my father! He is not my father. God knows, I renounce him, I renounce my father! He is the Antichrist, apostate from God! If he disappears, he drowns - I won't give a hand to save him. Dry him from the secret grass - I won't give him water to drink. You are my father! “VI In the deep basement of Pan Danil, behind three locks, sits a sorcerer, chained in iron chains; and in the distance over the Dnieper his demonic castle is burning, and waves, scarlet as blood, slurp and crowd around the ancient walls. The sorcerer sits in a deep basement not for witchcraft and not for godly deeds. God judge them. He is sitting for secret betrayal, for conspiracy with the enemies of the Orthodox Russian land to sell the Ukrainian people to Catholics and burn
christian churches ... Sullen sorcerer; the thought is black as night, in his head. Only one day remains to live for him; and tomorrow it's time to say goodbye to the world. He will be executed tomorrow. Not quite an easy execution awaits him: it is still a mercy when they boil him alive in a cauldron, or rip off his sinful skin. The sullen sorcerer dropped his head. Perhaps he already repents before the hour of death, but not such sins for God to forgive him. Above in front of him is a narrow window, tied with iron rods. Rattling with chains, he walked to the window to see if his daughter would pass. She is meek, not spiteful in memory, like a dove, whether she has mercy on her father ... But there is no one. The road runs below; no one will pass through it. The Dnieper walks below it; he does not care about anyone: he rages, and it is sad for the convict to hear his one-sounding noise. Someone showed up on the road - it's a Cossack! and the prisoner sighed heavily. Everything is empty again. Here, someone in the distance is descending ... A green kuntush is fluttering ... A golden boat is burning on his head ... This is it! He leaned even closer to the window. Now he’s getting close ... “Katerina! daughter! have mercy, give alms! .. “She is dumb, she does not want to listen, she will not even look at the prison, and has already passed, has already disappeared. Empty all over the world. The Dnieper is making a despondent noise. Sadness lies in the heart. But does the sorcerer know this sadness? The day is leaning towards evening. The sun has already set. He is no longer there. It's already evening: fresh; somewhere an ox mumbles; sounds are coming from somewhere, surely somewhere people are coming home from work and having fun; a boat flashes along the Dnieper ... who needs it before a convict! A silver sickle flashed in the sky. Here is someone walking from the opposite side along the road. Difficult to see in the dark. This is Katherine's return. "Daughter! For Christ's sake, and the fierce wolf cubs will not tear up their mother, daughter, although look at your criminal father! “She does not listen and goes. “Daughter, for the sake of an unhappy mother! ..” She stopped. “Come to receive my last word!” “Why are you calling me, apostate? Don't call me daughter! There is no kinship between us. What do you want from me for the sake of my unfortunate mother? "" Katerina! The end is near to me, I know your husband wants to tie me to a mare's tail and let me go across the field, or maybe he will even invent the most terrible execution ... "" Is there really an execution in the world equal to your sins? Wait for her; no one will ask for you. " "Katerina! I am not afraid of execution, but torment in the next world ... You are innocent, Katerina, your soul will fly in paradise near God; and the soul of your apostate father will burn in eternal fire, and that fire will never go out: it will flare up more and more; no one will drop a drop of dew, nor the wind smells. .. ““ I have no power to belittle this execution, ”said Katerina, turning away. "Katerina! wait one word: you can save my soul. You do not yet know how kind and merciful God is. Have you heard about the Apostle Paul, what a sinful man he was, but then he repented and became a saint. " “What can I do to save your soul!” Said Katerina: “Should I, a weak woman, think about it!” “If I could get out of here, I would have thrown everything. I will repent: I will go to the caves, put on a hard hair shirt on my body, I will pray to God day and night. Not only a sluggish one, I won't take fish in my mouth! I will not lay my clothes on when I go to sleep! and I will pray everything, everything I will pray! And when the mercy of God does not remove even a hundredth part of my sins from me, I will bury myself up to my neck in the ground, or wed myself into a stone wall; I will take neither food nor drink, and I will die; and I will give all my goods to the monks, so that forty days and forty nights they will rule over me a requiem. " Katerina pondered. "Although I will unlock, I will not untie your chains." “I'm not afraid of chains,” he said. “Are you saying that they chained my hands and feet? No, I put a mist in their eyes and, instead of a hand, held out a dry tree. Here I am, look, I don't have a single chain on now! ”He said, going out into the middle. “I would not have been afraid of these walls and would have walked through them, but your husband does not even know what these walls are. They were built by the holy schema-monk, and no unclean force can bring the convict out of here without unlocking the key with which he locked his cell. I will also dig such a cell for myself, an unheard-of sinner, when I go free. " “Listen, I'll let you out; but if you are deceiving me? "said Katerina, stopping at the door:" and instead of repenting, will you become the devil's brother again? " My end is near and without execution. Do you really think that I will betray myself to eternal torment? ”The locks rattled. "Goodbye! God bless you, my dear child! “said the sorcerer, kissing her. “Don't touch me, you unheard of sinner, go away soon! ..” Katerina said; but he was gone. “I released him,” she said, frightened and wildly inspecting the walls. “What am I going to answer to my husband now? I am lost. It remains for me to bury myself in the grave alive now! ”And sobbing, she almost fell on the stump on which the convict was sitting. “But I saved my soul,” she said quietly. “I have done a godly deed. But my husband ... I deceived him for the first time. Oh, how scary, how difficult it will be for me to tell a lie in front of him. Someone is coming! It's him! husband! “she cried out desperately and fell senseless to the ground. VII “It's me, my own daughter! It's me, my dear! “Katerina heard, waking up, and saw an old servant in front of her. Baba, bending over, seemed to be whispering something, and stretching out her withered hand over her, sprinkled it with cold water. “Where am I?” Said Katerina, getting up and looking around. “The Dnieper is rustling in front of me, behind me are the mountains ... where did you take me, woman!” “I did not lead you, but led out; carried in my arms from the stuffy basement. I locked it with a key so that you don't get anything from Pan Danil. " “Where is the key?” Said Katerina, glancing at her belt. "I do not see him". “Your husband has untied him, to look at the sorcerer, my child.” "Look? .. Baba, I'm lost!" Cried Katerina. “May God have mercy on us from this, my child! Just keep quiet, my lady, no one will know anything! "" He ran away, damned antichrist! Did you hear, Katerina, he ran away? "Said Pan Danilo, approaching his wife. The eyes threw fire; the saber, ringing, shook at his side. His wife died. “Has anyone let him out, my husband?” She said, trembling. “I let it out, the truth is yours; but let out the devil. Look, the log is bound in iron instead. God made it so that the devil is not afraid of the goat's paws! If only one of my Cossacks had thought about it in my head, and I would have found out ... I would not have found an execution for him! “If you had thought it up, then you would not have been my wife. I would then sew you into a sack and drown you in the very middle of the Dnieper! .. “The spirit took over from Katerina, and it seemed to her that the hairs began to separate on her head. VIII On the border road, in the inn, the Poles have gathered and have been feasting for two days already. Something is not enough for all the bastards. Probably agreed on some kind of collision: some have muskets; spurs clink; sabers are rattling. The pans have fun and brag, talk about their unprecedented deeds, scoff at Orthodoxy, call the Ukrainian people their servants and twist their mustaches importantly, and importantly, with their heads raised, they fall apart on the benches. Xenz is with them. Only they have a xenz to become their own: and in appearance does not even look like a Christian priest. Drinks and walks with them and speaks in an unholy tongue his curious speech. The servants are in no way inferior to them: they threw back the sleeves of their torn-off zhupans, and walk as a trump card, as if something worthwhile. They play cards, beat each other on the noses with cards. They took with them other people's wives. Shout, fight! .. The pans rage and let go of things: they grab a Jew by the beard, paint a cross on his wicked forehead; shoot women with blank charges and dance Krakowiak with their wicked priest. There was no such temptation on the Russian soil from the Tatars. Apparently, God already determined for her sins to endure such a shame! One can hear between the general sodom what they say about the Zadneprovsky farm of Pan Danil, about his beautiful wife ... This gang has not gathered for a good deed! IX Pan Danilo sits at the table in his room, propped up on his elbow, and thinks. Sits on the couch of Mrs. Katerina and sings a song. “Something is sad for me, my wife!” Said Pan Danilo. “And my head hurts, and my heart hurts. It's somehow hard for me! Apparently, somewhere not far away my death is already walking. " “Oh, my beloved husband! lean your head to me! Why are you nagging such black thoughts to yourself, "thought Katerina, but did not dare to say. It was bitter for her, guilty, to accept her husband's affection. “Listen, my wife!” Danilo said: “Don't leave your son when I'm gone. God will not give you happiness if you throw him, neither in this nor in this light. It will be hard for my bones to rot in the damp earth; and it will be even harder for my soul. " “What are you saying, my husband! didn't you mock us weak wives? and now you speak like a weak wife. You have to live for a long time. " „No, Katerina, the soul can smell
near death ... Something becomes sad in the world. Dashing times are coming. Oh, I remember, I remember the years; they probably won't come back! He was still alive, honor and glory of our army, old Konashevich! as if the Cossack regiments were now passing before my eyes! - It was a golden time, Katerina! - The old hetman was sitting on a black horse. The mace glittered in his hand; around Serdyuki; the red sea of the Cossacks stirred on either side. The hetman began to speak - and everything was rooted to the spot. The old man wept as he began to remember to us the old deeds and slaughter. Eh, if you only knew, Katerina, how we cut with the Turks then! A scar is visible on my head to this day. Four bullets flew in four places through me. And none of the wounds healed at all. How much gold we collected then! Cossacks scooped expensive stones with hats. What horses, Katerina, if you only knew what horses we stole then! Oh, I don't have to fight like that! It seems that he is not old, and is vigorous in body; and the Cossack sword falls out of my hands, I live without work, and I myself do not know why I live. There is no order in Ukraine: the colonels and the Esauls squabble like dogs with each other. There is no senior head over all. Our gentry changed everything to the Polish custom, adopted cunning ... sold their souls, having accepted union. Judaism oppresses the poor people. Oh time! time! past time! Where have you gone, my summers? .. Go, kid, to the basement, bring me some honey! I'll drink to my old share and years ago! ”“ How are we going to receive our guests, sir? Poles are coming from the meadow side! ”Stetsko said, entering the hut. “I know why they are coming,” Danilo said, rising from his seat. “Saddle, my faithful servants, horses! put on your harness! sabers bared! don't forget to get some lead oatmeal too. We must greet the guests with honor! “But the Cossacks had not yet had time to mount their horses and load their muskets, and already the Poles, like a leaf that had fallen from a tree to the ground in the fall, dotted the mountain with themselves. “Oh, yes, there is someone to transfer with!” Said Danilo, looking at the fat gentlemen, who were importantly swinging in front of them on horses, in a golden harness. “Apparently, we will once again have a wonderful walk! You will be tired, Cossack soul, for the last time! Take a walk, lads, our holiday has come! “And the fun went through the mountains. And he locked up the feast: swords are walking; bullets fly; horses neigh and stomp. The head goes mad from screaming; the eyes go blind from the smoke. Everything got mixed up. But the Cossack senses where the friend is, where the foe is; whether a bullet rumbles, a dashing rider falls from his horse; a saber whistles - a head rolls on the ground, muttering incoherent speeches with its tongue. But the red top of Pan Danil's Cossack cap is visible in the crowd; a golden belt on a blue zhupan rushes into the eyes; the mane of a black horse twists like a whirlwind. Like a bird, he flickers here and there; shouts and waves with a damascus saber, and chops from the right and left shoulder. Ruby, Cossack! walk, Cossack! damn good heart; but do not look at the golden harnesses and zupans: trample gold and stones under your feet! Koli, Cossack! walk, Cossack! but look back: the wicked Poles are already setting fire to their huts and driving away the frightened cattle. And, like a whirlwind, Pan Danilo turned back, and a hat with a red top flashed already near the huts, and the crowd around him was thinning. Poles and Cossacks fight not for an hour, not for another. There are not many of both. But Pan Danilo does not get tired: he knocks him off the saddle with his long spear, tramples on foot with his dashing horse. The yard is already being cleared, the Poles have already begun to scatter; the Cossacks are already stripping off the dead with golden zhupans and rich harness; already Pan Danilo was getting ready in pursuit and looked to call his own ... and all boiled with rage: Katherine's father seemed to him. Here he is standing on a mountain and aiming a musket at him. Danilo drove the horse straight to him ... Kozak, you are going to death! .. The musket thunders - and the sorcerer disappeared behind the mountain. Only the faithful Stetsko saw a flash of red clothes and a wonderful hat. The Cossack staggered and fell to the ground. The faithful Stetsko rushed to his master - his master was lying, stretching out on the ground and closing his clear eyes. Scarlet blood boiled on his chest. But, apparently, he sensed his faithful servant. He quietly raised his eyelids, flashed his eyes: “Farewell, Stetsko! tell Katerina not to leave her son! Do not leave him either, my faithful servants! “And fell silent. The Cossack soul flew out of the noble body; the lips turned blue. The Cossack sleeps soundly. The faithful servant burst into tears and waves his hand to Katerina: “Go, lady, go: your pan has played. He lies drunk on the damp ground. It will take him a long time to sober up! "Katerina clasped her hands and fell like a sheaf on the dead body. “My husband, are you lying here with your eyes closed? Arise, my beloved falcon, stretch out your hand! get up! look at your Katerina at least once, move your lips, utter at least one word! .. But you are silent, you are silent, my clear sir! You turned blue like the black sea. Your heart is not beating! Why are you so cold, my sir? apparently, my tears are not flammable, they cannot warm you! Apparently, my cry is not loud, they cannot wake you up! Who will lead your shelves now? Who will ride on your raven conic? Will he buzz loudly and wave his saber in front of the Cossacks? Cossacks, Cossacks! where is your honor and glory? Your honor and glory lie, with your eyes closed, on the damp earth. Bury me, bury me with him! cover my eyes with earth! push my maple boards on my white breasts! I don't need my beauty anymore! “Katerina cries and is killed; and the distance is covered with dust: the old esaul Gorobets gallops to the rescue. X The Dnieper is wonderful in calm weather, when freely and smoothly rushes through forests and mountains
full of water their. Nor will hesitate; nor will it thunder. You look, and you don't know whether its majestic width is walking or not, and it seems as if it is all poured out of glass, and as if a blue mirror road, without measure in width, endlessly in length, flutters and winds through the green world. Lubo then the hot sun will look around from above and immerse the rays in the cold of the glassy waters, and the coastal forests will shine brightly in the waters. Green-haired! they crowd together with wildflowers to the waters, and bending down, look into them and do not look, and do not stop admiring their bright gaze, and grin at him, and greet him, nodding their branches. In the middle of the Dnieper, they dare not look: no one, except the sun and the blue sky, looks into it. A rare bird will fly to the middle of the Dnieper. Lush! he has no equal river in the world. The Dnieper is wonderful even on a warm summer night, when everything falls asleep, both man, and beast, and bird; and God alone majestically gazes at heaven and earth, and majestically shakes the robe. Stars are falling from the robe. The stars burn and shine over the world, and all at once are given in the Dnieper. All of them are kept by the Dnieper in its dark bosom. Not one will run away from him; does it go out in the sky. The black forest, riddled with sleeping ravens, and the ancient broken mountains, hanging down, strive to close it, although with their long shadow - in vain! There is nothing in the world that could cover the Dnieper. Blue, blue he walks with a smooth flow and in the middle of the night, like the middle of the day, is visible as far away as the human eye can see. Shrinking and snuggling closer to the shores from the night cold, he gives himself a silver stream; and it flares up like a strip of a damask saber; and he, blue, fell asleep again. The Dnieper is also wonderful then, and there is no river equal to it in the world! When blue clouds move like mountains across the sky, the black forest staggers to the roots, oaks crackle, and lightning, breaking between the clouds, will at once illuminate the whole world - then the Dnieper is terrible! The water hills thunder, hitting the mountains, and with a glitter and groan run back, and cry, and flood in the distance. This is how the old mother of the Cossack is killed, escorting her son into the army. Reckless and vigorous, he rides on a black horse, his hips akimbo and valiantly twisting his hat; and she, sobbing, runs after him, grabs him by the stirrup, catches the bit and breaks her arms over him and bursts into burning tears. The charred stumps and stones on the protruding bank are wildly blackened between the rolling waves. And beating against the shore, rising up and down, the mooring boat. Which of the Cossacks dared to walk in the canoe, at a time when the old Dnieper was angry? Apparently, he does not know that he swallows people like flies. The boat moored, and the sorcerer got out of it. He is not cheerful; he is bitter at the feast which the Cossacks performed over their slain master. The Poles paid a lot: forty-four lords with all harness and zhupans, and thirty-three slaves were chopped to pieces; and the rest, together with the horses, were driven into captivity and sold to the Tatars. He went down the stone steps between the burnt stumps, down, where, deep in the ground, a dugout was dug for him. He quietly entered, without hiding by the door, put a pot on the table covered with a tablecloth, and began tossing some unknown herbs with his long arms; took a kitchen made of some wonderful tree, drew water with it and began to pour, moving his lips and casting some kind of spell. A pink light appeared in the room; and it was scary to look at his face then. It seemed bloody, deep wrinkles only turned black on it, and the eyes were like on fire. Wicked sinner! already the beard has long since turned gray, and the face is pitted with wrinkles, and it is all dry, but it is still doing a godly intent. A white cloud began to blow in the middle of the hut, and something similar to joy flashed in his face. But why did he suddenly become motionless, with his mouth open, not daring to move, and why did the hair rise like stubble on his head? A strange face shone in the cloud in front of him. Unsolicited, uninvited, it came to visit him; the further, more became clear and fixed his motionless eyes. His features, eyebrows, eyes, lips, everything unfamiliar to him. He had never seen him in all his life. And it seems that there is little terrible in him; and an irresistible terror fell upon him. And an unfamiliar wondrous head through the cloud was just as motionless looking at him. The cloud is already gone; and the unknown features were shown even more sharply and the sharp eyes did not leave him. The sorcerer turned white as a sheet. Wild, screamed out of his own voice, knocked over the pot ... Everything was gone. XI “Calm yourself, my any sister!” Said the old esaul Gorobets. Dreams rarely tell the truth. “Lie down, sister!” Said his young daughter-in-law. “I will call the old woman, bewitch; against her no strength can stand. She will pour out a commotion to you. " "Do not be afraid of anything!" Said his son, grabbing his saber: "No one will offend you." Cloudy, with dull eyes, Katerina looked at everyone and could not find speech. “I arranged my own destruction. I released it. " Finally she said: “I have no rest from him! For ten days now I have been with you in Kiev; and the grief did not diminish a bit. I thought that I would at least in silence raise my son to revenge ... Terrible, terrible I saw him in my dream! God forbid you to see him too! My heart is still beating. I will hack to death your child, Katerina! he shouted if you don’t marry me ... “and, sobbing, she rushed to the cradle, and the frightened child stretched out her little hands and screamed. The son of the Esaul seethed and sparkled with anger, hearing such speeches. Esaul Gorobets himself also dispersed: “Let him, the accursed Antichrist, try to come here; will taste whether power is in the hands of the old Cossack. God sees, ”he said, raising his discerning eyes:“ Didn't I fly to give my hand to Brother Danil? His holy will! I found it already on the cold bed, on which many, many Cossack people lay down. But wasn’t it splendid fun for him? Have you released at least one living Pole? Calm down, my child! no one will dare to offend you, will neither me, nor my son. " Having finished his words, the old Esaul came to the cradle, and the child, seeing a red cradle and a gaman with a shiny flint, hanging on his belt in a silver frame, stretched out his little hands to him and laughed. “He will follow his father,” said the old esaul, taking off the cradle and giving it to him: “I have not left the cradle yet, but is already thinking of smoking the cradle.” Katerina sighed softly and began to rock the cradle. They agreed to spend the night together, and not long afterwards they all fell asleep. Katerina fell asleep too. Everything was quiet in the yard and in the hut; only the Cossacks, who stood at the watch, did not sleep. Suddenly Katerina, with a cry, woke up, and everyone woke up after her. “He is killed, he is stabbed!” She shouted and rushed to the cradle. Everyone surrounded the cradle and petrified with fear when they saw that there was a lifeless child in it. None of them uttered a sound, not knowing what to think of the unheard-of atrocity. XII Far from the Ukrainian territory, having passed Poland, bypassing the crowded city of Lemberg, there are rows of high-topped mountains. Mountain after mountain, as if with stone chains, they throw the earth to the right and left and forge it with a stone mass so that the noisy and violent sea does not suck. Stone chains are going to Wallachia and to the Sedmigrad region, and they have become a giant in the form of a horseshoe between the Galich and Hungarian people. There are no such mountains in our side. The eye dares not look them over; and a human foot did not reach the top of some. Their appearance is also wonderful: did not the perky sea run out into the storm from the wide shores, threw up ugly waves like a whirlwind, and they, petrified, remained motionless in the air? Did not heavy clouds break from the sky and block the earth with them? for they have the same gray color, and the white top shines and sparkles in the sun. Even before the Carpathian mountains, you will hear Russian rumor, and beyond the mountains, here and there, as if a native word will respond; and there already the faith is not the same, and the speech is not the same. It is not a poorly populated Hungarian people who live; rides horses, chops and drinks as well as a Cossack; and for horse harness and expensive caftans he is not stingy to take out of his pocket gold pieces. There are large and wide lakes between the mountains. Like glass, they are immovable and, like a mirror, give in themselves the bare tops of the mountains and their green soles. But who, in the middle of the night, do the stars shine or do not shine, rides a huge black horse? What hero with inhuman growth gallops under the mountains, over the lakes, gleams with a gigantic horse in motionless waters, and his endless shadow flickers terribly over the mountains? Embossed armor shines; on the shoulder of the peak; a saber rattles at the saddle; the shell is pulled over; the mustache turns black; the eyes are closed; eyelashes lowered - he is asleep. And, sleepy, keeps the rein; and behind him sits on the same horse a baby page, and also sleeps and, sleepy, clings to the hero. Who is he, where, why is he going? - Who knows. Not a day, not two already, he moves mountains. The day will shine, the sun will rise, it is not visible; From time to time, the mountaineers only noticed that a long shadow flickered across the mountains, and the sky was clear, and the clouds would not pass over it. A little bit the night will bring darkness, again he is visible and given in the lakes and behind him, trembling, gallops his shadow. He has already passed many mountains and rode up to Krivan. This mountain is not higher between the Carpathians, as the king rises above others. Here the horse and the rider stopped, and sank even deeper into sleep, and the clouds, descending, covered him. XIII "Hush ... quieter, woman! don't knock like that, my child is asleep. My son cried for a long time, now he is asleep. I'll go to the forest, baba! Why are you looking at me like that? You are scary: iron pincers are pulling out of your eyes ... oh, how long! and burn like fire! You are right, a witch! Oh, if you are a witch, then get out of here! you will steal my son. How stupid this esaul is: he thinks it's fun for me to live in Kiev; no, both my husband and my son are here; who will look after the hut? I left so quietly that neither the cat nor the dog heard. You want, woman, to become young - it's not at all difficult: you only need to dance; look how I dance ... “and having uttered such incoherent speeches, Katerina was already rushing, looking madly in all directions and resting her hands on her hips. She tapped her feet with a squeal; silver horseshoes rang without measure, without measure. Unbraided black braids darted around her white neck. Like a bird, without stopping, she flew, waving her arms and nodding her head, and it seemed as if, exhausted, she would either crash to the ground or fly out of the world. The old nanny stood sadly and her deep wrinkles filled with tears; a heavy stone lay on the hearts of the faithful lads, who were looking at their lady. She was already completely weak and lazily stamped her feet in one place, thinking that she was dancing a turtle dove. “And I have a monisto, guys!” She said at last, stopping: “but you do not! .. Where is my husband? “She cried suddenly, snatching a Turkish dagger from her belt. "O! this is not the kind of knife you need. " At the same time, tears and melancholy appeared on her face. “My father has a far heart, he will not reach him. His heart is forged from iron. He was forged by a witch on a hellish fire. What does my father not want? doesn't he know it's time to stab him? Apparently, he wants me to come myself ... “and without finishing, she laughed wonderfully. “A funny story came to my mind: I remembered how my husband was buried. After all, they buried him alive ... what a laugh took me away ... Listen, listen! "And instead of words, she began to sing a song: Bizhyt the blood-carriage: Lie at the carriage, Shoot, chopped. Hold the dart in the right hand Bizhyt bloody rick. Over the rich sycamore stand. Above the sycamore, there are crows. For the Cossack, mats are crying. Do not cry, mats, do not zhurysya! More your son will be married. She took a little lady, In pure poly, a little earth, And without a door, without an end. The same, write the end. The fish danced with cancer ... But I can't love the shaking of its mother! So all her songs were mixed. For a day or two she has been living in her hut and does not want to hear about Kiev, and does not pray, and runs away from people; and from morning to late evening wanders through the dark oak forests. Sharp twigs scratch the white face and shoulders; the wind flutters the unbraided braids; old leaves rustle under her feet - she does not look at anything. At the hour when the evening dawn is dying out, the stars are not yet appearing, the month is not burning, and it is already scary to walk in the forest: unbaptized children claw at the trees and grab branches, cry, laugh, roll in a club along the roads and in wide nettles; maidens who have destroyed their souls run out of the Dnieper waves; hair flows from a green head onto her shoulders, water, sounding murmuring, runs from her long hair to the ground, and the maiden shines through the water, as if through a glass shirt; the lips smile wonderfully, the cheeks glow, the eyes entice the soul ... she would have burned with love, she would have kissed ... Run! baptized man! her mouth is ice, her bed is
cold water ; she will tickle you and carry you into the river. Katerina does not look at anyone, is not afraid, insane, of mermaids, runs late with her knife and looks for her father. Early in the morning a visitor arrived, stately, in a red zhupan, and inquired about Pan Danil; hears everything, wipes his tear-stained eyes with his sleeve and shrugs. He de fought with the late Burulbash; they fought together with the Crimeans and Turks; whether he was waiting for such an end to be Pan Danila. The guest also tells about many other things and wants to see Mrs. Katerina. At first Katerina did not listen to anything that the guest said; Finally, she began to listen attentively to his speech, like a reasonable one. He talked about how they lived with Danil, like brother and brother; how they once took refuge under the rowing from the Crimeans ... Katerina listened to everything and did not take her eyes off him. "She will move away!" Thought the lads, looking at her. “This guest will heal her! she already listens, how reasonable! "The guest began to tell the story, meanwhile, when Pan Danilo, at the hour of a frank conversation, said to him:" Look, brother Kopryan: when by the will of God there is no me in the world, take a wife to you, and let her be your wife ... “Katerina terribly thrust her eyes into him. “Ah!” She cried out: “this is it! this is the father! “and threw herself at him with a knife. He fought for a long time, trying to snatch the knife from her. Finally he pulled it out, swung it - and a terrible thing happened: the father killed his insane daughter. The astonished Cossacks rushed at him; but the sorcerer had already jumped on his horse and disappeared from sight. XIV An unheard-of miracle appeared beyond Kiev. All the lords and hetmans were going to marvel at this miracle: it suddenly became visible far to all parts of the world. In the distance, the Liman turned blue, beyond the Liman the Black Sea was overflowing. Experienced people recognized the Crimea, rising like a mountain from the sea, and the marsh Sivash. On the left hand was visible the Galich land. “And what is it?” The gathered people interrogated the old people, pointing to the gray and white tops that seemed far away in the sky and looked more like clouds. “Those are the Carpathian mountains!” The old people said: “between them there are those from which the snow has not melted for ages; but the clouds stick and spend the night there. " Then a new miracle appeared: the clouds flew from the highest mountain, and at the top of it appeared in all knightly harness a man on a horse with closed eyes, and so visible, as if he was standing close. Here, among the people, astonished with fear, one jumped on his horse and, wildly looking around, as if looking with his eyes, if anyone was chasing after him, hurriedly, as best he could, drove his horse. It was a sorcerer. Why was he so scared? Looking with fear at the wonderful knight, he recognized on him the same face that, uninvited, seemed to him when he was enchanting. He himself could not understand why everything in him was embarrassed at such an appearance and, timidly looking around, he raced on a horse, until the evening overtook him and the stars glimmered. Then he turned home, maybe to interrogate the evil spirits, what such a miracle means. Already he was about to jump with his horse across the narrow river, which had protruded as a sleeve in the middle of the road, when suddenly the horse stopped at full gallop, turned its muzzle towards him, and, miraculously, laughed! white teeth gleamed terribly in two rows in the darkness. The hairs on the sorcerer's head rose like a shaft. He cried out wildly and wept like a frenzied man, and drove the horse straight to Kiev. It seemed to him that everything was running from all sides to catch him: the trees, surrounded by a dark forest, and as if alive, nodding their black beards and stretching out their long branches, were trying to strangle him; the stars seemed to run ahead in front of him, pointing everyone at the sinner; the road itself seemed to be racing in his footsteps. A desperate sorcerer flew to Kiev to the holy places. XV The schema-monk sat alone in his cave in front of the lamp, and did not take his eyes off the holy book. It had been many years since he had shut himself up in his cave. I have already made myself a plank coffin, in which I went to sleep instead of a bed. The holy elder closed his book and began to pray ... Suddenly a wonderful man ran in,
scary look ... The holy schema-monk was amazed for the first time, and retreated when he saw such a person. He trembled all over like an aspen leaf; the eyes looked wildly sideways; a terrible fire poured fearfully from his eyes; his ugly face shivered in his soul. “Father, pray! pray! "he cried desperately:" pray for a lost soul! "and fell to the ground. The holy schema monk crossed himself, took out a book, unfolded it, and in horror stepped back and dropped the book: “No, an unheard-of sinner! no mercy for you! run away from here! I can't pray for you! ”“ No? ”cried like a mad sinner. “Look: the holy letters in the book are bloodshot. Never before in the world has there been such a sinner! ”“ Father, you laugh at me! ”“ Go, you accursed sinner! I'm not laughing at you. Fear takes possession of me. It is not good for a person to be together with you! "" No! no, you are laughing, do not speak ... I see how your mouth parted: now your old teeth are whitening in rows! .. “And, like a madman, he rushed - and killed the holy schema-monk. Something groaned heavily and the groan was carried across the field and forest. Lean, dry hands with long claws rose from behind the forest; shook and disappeared. And already no fear, he felt nothing. Everything seems to him vaguely. There is a noise in the ears, a noise in the head, as if from hops, and everything that is in front of the eyes is covered as if by a cobweb. Jumping on his horse, he rode straight to Kanev, thinking from there through Cherkasy to direct the path to the Tatars directly to the Crimea, without knowing why. He has been driving for a day or two, but Kanev is still gone. The road is the same; it would be time for him to show up for a long time, but Kanev is not visible. The tops of the churches gleamed in the distance. But this is not Kanev, but Shumsk. The sorcerer was amazed, seeing that he drove in a completely different direction. He drove the horse back to Kiev, and a day later the city appeared; but not Kiev, but Galich, a city even farther from Kiev than Shumsk, and already not far from the Hungarians. Not knowing what to do, he turned the horse back again, but again he felt that he was going in the opposite direction and all forward. Could not a single person in the world tell what was in the soul of the sorcerer; and if he looked in and saw what was going on there, he would no longer sleep at night and would not laugh even once. It was not anger, not fear, and not fierce annoyance. There is no such word in the world that could be called. He was burning, scorching, he would like to trample the whole world with his horse, take all the land from Kiev to Galich with people, with everything and flood it in the Black Sea. But it was not out of anger that he wanted to do it; no, he himself did not know why. He shuddered all over, when the Carpathian Mountains and the high Krivan appeared close before him, covering his crown, as if with a hat, with a gray cloud; and the horse continued to rush and was already scouring the mountains. The clouds at once cleared, and the horseman appeared in terrible grandeur. He tries to stop; pulls the bit tightly; the horse whinnied wildly, raising its mane, and rushed to the knight. It seems to the sorcerer that everything in him is frozen, that the motionless horseman is stirring and at once opened his eyes; saw the sorcerer rushing towards him and laughed. Like thunder, wild laughter scattered over the mountains and sounded in the heart of the sorcerer, shaking everything that was inside him. It seemed to him that someone strong had climbed into him and walked inside him and struck with hammers on the heart, on the veins ... this laughter was so terrifying in him! The rider seized the terrible hand of the sorcerer and lifted him into the air. The sorcerer died instantly and opened his eyes after death. But there was already a dead man, and he looked like a dead man. Neither alive nor resurrected looks so scary. He turned around with dead eyes and saw the dead rise up from Kiev, and from the land of Galich, and from the Carpathians, like two drops of water with a face similar to him. Pale, pale, one taller than the other, one of the other bones, they became around the rider, who held a terrible prey in his hand. The knight laughed again and threw her into the abyss. And all the dead jumped into the abyss, picked up the dead man and sank their teeth into it. Another one above all, the most terrible of all, wanted to rise from the ground; but he could not, he was not able to do it, he grew so great in the earth; and if he had risen, he would have overturned the Carpathians, and the Sedmigrad and Turkish lands, he just moved a little, and from that there was a shaking all over the earth. And many huts were thrown around everywhere. And a lot of people crushed. You can often hear a whistle in the Carpathian Mountains, as if a thousand mills are rustling with wheels on the water. That, in a hopeless abyss, which has not yet been seen by any person who is afraid to pass by, the dead are gnawing at the dead. It often happened throughout the world that the earth shook from one end to the other; that is why it is done, literate people interpret, that there is somewhere, near the sea, a mountain, from which flames are pulled out and burning rivers flow. But the old people who live both in Hungary and in the Galich land know this better and say: the great, great dead man who has grown in the earth wants to rise and shakes the earth. XVI In the city of Glukhov, people gathered around the old man of the bandura player, and for an hour they had been listening to the blind man playing the bandura. Not a single bandura player has sung such wonderful songs yet. First, he talked about the former hetmanate for Sagaidachny and Khmelnitsky. Then the time was different: the Cossacks were in glory; horses trampled enemies, and no one dared to laugh at him. The old man sang merry songs and looked at the people with his eyes, as if he were seeing; and the fingers, with the bones attached to them, flew like a fly over the strings, and the strings seemed to be playing; and all around the people, old people, bowing their heads, and young people, raising their eyes to the elder, did not dare to whisper among themselves. “Wait,” said the elder: “I will sing to you about one old case.” The people moved even closer and the blind man sang: “For Pan Stepan, Prince of Sedmigradsky, there was a prince of Sedmigradsky, and among the Poles, there lived two Cossacks: Ivan and Petro. They lived like brother and brother. “Look, Ivan, whatever you get - everything in half. When someone has fun - fun to another; when to whom grief - woe to both; when to whom prey - in half the prey; when someone gets into the full, another sell everything and give a ransom, otherwise, go into the full yourself. " Indeed, whatever the Cossacks got, they divided everything in half; Whether they drove away other people's livestock or horses, everything was divided in half. *** “King Stepan fought with Turchin. For three weeks now he has been at war with Turchin, but still he cannot drive him out. And Turchin had such a pasha that he himself with ten janissaries could chop down a whole regiment. So King Stepan announced that if a daredevil was found and brought to him that Pasha, alive or dead, he would give him alone as much salary as he gave for the whole army. “Let's go, brother, to catch the pasha!” Said brother Ivan to Peter. And the Cossacks drove off, one in one direction, the other in the other. *** „Whether he would have caught or not caught Petro, and already Ivan leads the pasha with a lasso by the neck to the king himself. “Brave fellow!” Said King Stepan, and ordered to give him one such salary, which is received by the whole army; and ordered to give him the land where he thought of for himself, and to give as many livestock as he wanted. As Ivan received a salary from the king, on the same day he divided everything equally between himself and Peter. Petro took half of the royal salary, but he could not bear that Ivan received such an honor from the king, and deeply harbored vengeance in his soul. *** “Both knights rode to the land granted by the king, beyond the Carpathians. The Cossack Ivan put his son on the horse with him, tying him to himself. It was already twilight - they were all going. The baby fell asleep, and Ivan himself began to doze. Do not doze, Cossack, the roads are dangerous over the mountains! .. But the Cossack has such a horse that he knows the way everywhere, he will not stumble or stumble. There is a gap between the mountains, no one has seen the bottom in the gap; as much from earth to sky, as much to the bottom of that hole. There is a road just above the sinkhole - two people can still pass, and three for nothing. The horse began to tread carefully with the dozing Cossack. Petro rode beside him, trembling all over and hiding his spirit with joy. He looked around and pushed the named brother into the hole. And the horse with the Cossack and the baby flew into the hole. *** “However, the Cossack grabbed a branch, and only one horse flew to the bottom. He began to climb, with his son on his shoulders, up; I didn't get a bit, looked up and saw that Petro had set a pike to push him back. “My God, righteous one, it would be better for me not to raise my eyes than to see my brother instructing a lance to push me back. My dear brother! if it’s already written to me like that, but take your son! what is the innocent baby to blame for such a fierce death? ”Petro laughed and pushed him with his lance, and the Cossack with the baby flew to the bottom. Petro took all his goods for himself and began to live like a Pasha. No one had herds like Peter. There weren't so many sheep and rams anywhere. And Petro died. *** “How Peter died, God called the souls of both brothers, Peter and Ivan, to trial. “This man is a great sinner!” God said. “Ivane! I will not choose his execution soon; choose your own execution for him! ”Ivan thought for a long time, inventing the execution, and finally said:“ This man has inflicted a great offense on me: he betrayed his brother, like Judas, and deprived me of my honest family and offspring on earth. And a man without an honest family and offspring is like a grain of bread thrown into the ground and wasted in the ground. No seedling - no one will know that the seed was thrown. *** „Do, God, so that all his offspring do not have happiness on earth! so that the last of his kind was such a villain, which has never happened in the world! And from each of his atrocities, so that his grandfathers and great-grandfathers would not find peace in the coffins, and enduring torment unknown in the world, they would rise from the graves! And Judas Peter, so that he would not be able to rise, and from that would endure a still bitter torment; and would eat the earth like a madman and writhe under the earth! *** “And when the hour of measure for the evil deeds comes to that man, raise me, God, from that sinkhole on horseback to the highest mountain, and let him come to me, and I will throw him from that mountain into the deepest hole, and that's all the dead, his grandfathers and great-grandfathers, wherever they lived in life, so that everyone reached out from different sides of the earth to gnaw him, for the torment that he inflicted on them, and would always gnaw him, and I would have fun looking at his torment! And Judas Petro so that he could not rise from the ground, so that he was eager to gnaw himself, but he would gnaw himself, and his bones would grow more and more, so that through this his pain would become even stronger. That torment for him will be the most terrible: for there is no greater torment for a person than to want to take revenge, and not be able to take revenge. *** “A terrible execution, invented by you, man!” God said. "Let everything be as you said, but you also sit there forever on your horse, and you will not have the kingdom of heaven, as long as you sit there on your horse!" on the Carpathian Mountains, a wondrous knight is on a horse, and sees how the dead are gnawing at a dead man in a bottomless hole, and feels how the dead man lying under the earth grows, gnaws at its bones in terrible agony and terribly shakes the whole earth. .. “The blind man has already finished his song; already began to pluck the strings again; I had already started singing funny sayings about Khoma and Erem, about Stklyar Stokoza ... but the old and young still did not think to wake up and stood for a long time with their heads down, thinking about the terrible thing that had happened in the old days.
"Have you heard the story about the blue sorcerer? It happened with us beyond the Dnieper. A terrible thing! In the thirteenth year I heard this from my mother, and I do not know how to tell you, but it all seems to me that since that time a little fun has fallen from my heart. Do you know the place that is fifteen versts higher than Kiev? There is already a pine tree. The Dnieper and in that direction is also wide. Oh, the river! The sea, not the river! Noises and thunders and as if it does not want to know anyone. As if through a dream, as if reluctantly stirring a wide expanse of water and strewn with ripples.And whether the wind walks along it at one in the morning or in the evening, how everything in it trembles, it fusses: it seems as if the people are gathering in a crowd for matins or vespers. By God: we need it, long time ago. And everything trembles and sparkles in sparks, like a wolf's hair in the middle of the night. Someday already in old age it’s quite time to go there: we are with you, Foma Grigorievich, then we are stealing into the cell, and you too, Taras Ivanovich! We will pray and walk on holy stoves. What wonderful places there! "
Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol
Terrible revenge
I
The end of Kiev is noisy, thundering: the esaul Gorobets is celebrating the wedding of his son. Many people came to visit the Esaul. In the old days they loved to eat well, even better they loved to drink, and even better they loved to have fun. The Zaporozhian Mikitka also arrived on his chestnut horse straight from a riotous drinking binge from Altering the fields, where he watered the royal gentry with red wine for seven days and seven nights. The named brother of the Esaul, Danilo Burulbash, also arrived from the other bank of the Dnieper, where, between two mountains, was his farm, with his young wife Katerina and his one-year-old son. The guests marveled at the white face of Mrs. Katerina, black as German velvet, eyebrows, elegant cloth and a blue half-cloth underwear, boots with silver horseshoes; but they were even more amazed that her old father had not come with her. For only a year he lived in the Dnieper region, and twenty-one disappeared without a trace and returned to his daughter when she had already married and gave birth to a son. He probably would have said a lot of wondrous things. But how can you not tell, having been in a foreign land for so long! Everything is different there: the people are not the same, and there are no churches of Christ ... But he did not come.
The guests were offered dumplings with raisins and plums and korovai on a large platter. The musicians began to work on his underside, baked together with the money, and, having quieted down for a while, put cymbals, violins and tambourines near them. Meanwhile, the young ladies and girls, wiped off with their sewn kerchiefs, emerged again from their ranks; and the boys, clutching at their sides, proudly looking at the sides, were ready to rush towards them - just as the old esaul brought out two icons to bless the young. Those icons came to him from the honest schema-monk, Elder Bartholomew. Utensils are not rich in them, neither silver nor gold burns, but no unclean force dares to touch the one with whom they are in the house. Having lifted the icons up, the esaul was preparing to say a short prayer ... when suddenly the children playing on the ground screamed, frightened; and after them the people backed away, and all pointed their fingers with fear at the Cossack who was standing in their midst. Who he was - no one knew. But he had already danced to the glory of the Cossack and had already managed to amuse the crowd that surrounded him. When the esaul raised the icons, his whole face suddenly changed: his nose grew and bent to the side, instead of brown, green eyes jumped, his lips turned blue, his chin trembled and sharpened like a spear, a fang ran out of his mouth, a hump rose from behind his head, and became a Cossack - an old man.
It's him! it's him! - shouted in the crowd, hugging each other closely.
The sorcerer has appeared again! - shouted mothers, grabbing their children in their arms.
Majestically and dignifiedly the esaul stepped forward and said in a loud voice, setting icons against him:
Get lost, the image of Satan, there is no place for you here! - And, with a hiss and snapping teeth like a wolf, a wonderful old man disappeared.
Let's go, let's go and rustle like the sea in bad weather, talk and talk among the people.
Who is this sorcerer? - asked young and unprecedented people.
The trouble will be! - said the old ones, turning their heads.
And everywhere, throughout the wide courtyard of the esaul, they began to gather in small groups and listen to stories about the wonderful sorcerer. But almost everyone spoke differently, and probably no one could tell about him.
A barrel of honey was rolled out into the yard and buckets of walnut wine were placed quite a bit. Everything cheered up again. The musicians burst out; maids, young ladies, dashing cossacks in bright zhupans rushed. Ninety and hundred year olds, having played around, began to dance to themselves, remembering the years that were gone. They feasted until late at night, and feasted in a way that no longer feasts. The guests began to disperse, but few wandered home: a lot was left to spend the night at the Cauldron in the wide courtyard; and even more the Cossacks fell asleep on their own, uninvited, under the benches, on the floor, next to the horse, near the barn; where the Cossack's head swayed from the hops, there it lies and snores all over Kiev.
II
It shines quietly all over the world: that month appeared from behind the mountain. As if on a damask road and white as snow, it covered the mountainous bank of the Dnieper with muslin, and the shadow went even further into the thicket of pines.
An oak floated in the middle of the Dnieper. Two lads are sitting in front; black Cossack hats are sideways, and under the oars, as if from a flint fire, spray is flying in all directions.
Why don't the Cossacks sing? They do not talk about how priests are already walking around Ukraine and re-baptizing the Cossack people into Catholics; nor about how the horde fought at Salt Lake for two days. How to sing, how to talk about dashing deeds: their master Danilo became thoughtful, and the sleeve of a crimson zupan sank from an oak tree and draws water; their lady Katerina quietly sways the child and does not take her eyes off him, and water is falling down on the elegant cloth, which is not covered with linen, like gray dust.
Any look from the middle of the Dnieper to the high mountains, wide meadows, green forests! Those mountains are not mountains: they have no soles, below them as well as above, a sharp peak, and under them and above them there is a high sky. Those forests that stand on the hills are not forests: they are the hair that grows on the shaggy head of the forest grandfather. Under her, a beard is washed in the water, and under the beard and above the hair is a high sky. Those meadows are not meadows: it is a green belt that girdles the round sky in the middle, and a month walks in the upper half and in the lower half.
Pan Danilo does not look around, he looks at his young wife.
What, my young wife, my golden Katherine, has gone into sorrow?
I didn’t go into sorrow, my master Danilo! I was frightened by the wonderful stories about the sorcerer. They say that he was born so scary ... and none of the children from childhood wanted to play with him. Listen, Pan Danilo, how terribly they say: that everything seemed to him, that everyone was laughing at him. Would he meet on a dark evening with some person, and it immediately seemed to him that he was opening his mouth and showing his teeth. And the next day that man was found dead. I felt wonderful, I was scared when I listened to these stories, ”said Katerina, taking out a handkerchief and wiping the face of the child who was sleeping in her arms with it. Leaves and berries were embroidered on the scarf by her in red silk.
Pan Danilo did not say a word and began to glance at the dark side, where, far from behind the forest, an earthen rampart was blackened, and an old castle rose from behind the rampart. Three wrinkles were cut at once above the eyebrows; the left hand stroked the young mustache.
It's not so scary that a sorcerer, - he said, - how scary that he is an unkind guest. What kind of a whim had come to drag himself here? I heard that the Poles want to build some kind of fortress to cut our way to the Cossacks. Let it be true ... I'll sweep the damn nest if only word spreads that he has a brothel of some kind. I will burn the old sorcerer so that the crows will have nothing to peck at. However, I think he is not without gold and all kinds of goods. This is where this devil lives! If he has gold ... We will now sail past the crosses - this is a cemetery! here his unclean grandfathers rot. They say that they were all ready to sell themselves for money to Satan with a soul and stripped zhupans. If he definitely has gold, then there is nothing to hesitate now: it is not always possible to get it in a war ...
I know what you are up to. Meeting him does not bode well for me. But you breathe so hard, you look so sternly, your eyes are so sullenly drawn over with eyebrows! ..
Be quiet, woman! - Danilo said with a heart. - Whoever contacts you will become a woman himself. Boy, give me fire in the cradle! - Then he turned to one of the oarsmen, who, having knocked out the hot ash from his cradle, began to transfer it to the cradle of his master. - He scares me with a sorcerer! - continued Pan Danilo. - Kozak, thank God, is not afraid of devils or priests. It would be a lot of good if we obeyed wives. Isn't that right, lads? our wife is a cradle and a sharp saber!
Katerina fell silent, casting her eyes down into the sleepy water; and the wind rippled the water, and the whole Dnieper was silvery, like a wolf's hair in the middle of the night.
The oak turned and began to keep to the wooded bank. A cemetery could be seen on the shore: dilapidated crosses huddled in a pile. Neither viburnum grows between them, nor the grass turns green, only a month warms them from the heights of heaven.
Do you guys hear the screams? Someone is calling us for help! - said Pan Danilo, turning to his rowers.
We hear screams, and it seems from the other side, ”the lads said at once, pointing to the cemetery.
But everything was quiet. The boat turned and began to bend around the protruding bank. Suddenly the rowers lowered their oars and fixed their eyes motionlessly. Pan Danilo also stopped: fear and cold cut into the Cossack's veins.
Any look from the middle of the Dnieper to the high mountains, wide meadows, green forests! Those mountains are not mountains: they have no soles, below them as well as above, a sharp peak, and under them and above them there is a high sky. Those forests that stand on the hills are not forests: they are the hair that grows on the shaggy head of the forest grandfather. Under her, a beard is washed in the water, and under the beard and above the hair is a high sky. Those meadows are not meadows: it is a green belt that girdles the round sky in the middle, and a month walks in the upper half and in the lower half.
Pan Danilo does not look around, he looks at his young wife.
What, my young wife, my golden Katherine, has gone into sorrow?
I didn’t go into sorrow, my master Danilo! I was frightened by the wonderful stories about the sorcerer. They say that he was born so scary ... and none of the children from childhood wanted to play with him. Listen, Pan Danilo, how terribly they say: that everything seemed to him, that everyone was laughing at him. Would he meet on a dark evening with some person, and it immediately seemed to him that he was opening his mouth and showing his teeth. And the next day that man was found dead. I felt wonderful, I was scared when I listened to these stories, ”said Katerina, taking out a handkerchief and wiping the face of the child who was sleeping in her arms with it. Leaves and berries were embroidered on the scarf by her in red silk.
Pan Danilo did not say a word and began to glance at the dark side, where, far from behind the forest, an earthen rampart was blackened, and an old castle rose from behind the rampart. Three wrinkles were cut at once above the eyebrows; the left hand stroked the young mustache.
It's not so scary that a sorcerer, - he said, - how scary that he is an unkind guest. What kind of a whim had come to drag himself here? I heard that the Poles want to build some kind of fortress to cut our way to the Cossacks. Let it be true ... I'll sweep the damn nest if only word spreads that he has a brothel of some kind. I will burn the old sorcerer so that the crows will have nothing to peck at. However, I think he is not without gold and all kinds of goods. This is where this devil lives! If he has gold ... We will now sail past the crosses - this is a cemetery! here his unclean grandfathers rot. They say that they were all ready to sell themselves for money to Satan with a soul and stripped zhupans. If he definitely has gold, then there is nothing to hesitate now: it is not always possible to get it in a war ...
I know what you are up to. Meeting him does not bode well for me. But you breathe so hard, you look so sternly, your eyes are so sullenly drawn over with eyebrows! ..
Be quiet, woman! - Danilo said with a heart. - Whoever contacts you will become a woman himself. Boy, give me fire in the cradle! - Then he turned to one of the oarsmen, who, having knocked out the hot ash from his cradle, began to transfer it to the cradle of his master. - He scares me with a sorcerer! - continued Pan Danilo. - Kozak, thank God, is not afraid of devils or priests. It would be a lot of good if we obeyed wives. Isn't that right, lads? our wife is a cradle and a sharp saber!
Katerina fell silent, casting her eyes down into the sleepy water; and the wind rippled the water, and the whole Dnieper was silvery, like a wolf's hair in the middle of the night.
The oak turned and began to keep to the wooded bank. A cemetery could be seen on the shore: dilapidated crosses huddled in a pile. Neither viburnum grows between them, nor the grass turns green, only a month warms them from the heights of heaven.
Do you guys hear the screams? Someone is calling us for help! - said Pan Danilo, turning to his rowers.
We hear screams, and it seems from the other side, ”the lads said at once, pointing to the cemetery.
But everything was quiet. The boat turned and began to bend around the protruding bank. Suddenly the rowers lowered their oars and fixed their eyes motionlessly. Pan Danilo also stopped: fear and cold cut into the Cossack's veins.
The cross on the grave staggered, and a dried-up dead man quietly rose from it. Beard to the waist; the claws on the toes are long, even longer than the fingers themselves. He quietly raised his hands up. His face quivered and twisted. Apparently, he endured a terrible torment. “It's stuffy to me! stuffy! " he moaned in a wild, inhuman voice. His voice, like a knife, scratched at the heart, and the dead man suddenly went underground. Another cross swayed, and again a dead man came out, even more terrible, even higher than the previous one; all overgrown, knee-deep beard and even longer bony claws. He shouted even more wildly: "It's stuffy to me!" - and went underground. The third cross staggered, the third dead rose up. Bones alone seemed to rise high above the ground. Beard to the very heels; long-clawed fingers dug into the ground. He terribly stretched out his hands up, as if he wanted to get a month, and screamed as if someone had begun to saw through his yellow bones ...
The child, sleeping in Katerina's arms, screamed and woke up. The lady herself cried out. The rowers dropped their hats into the Dnieper. The pan himself shuddered.
The end of Kiev is noisy, thundering: the esaul Gorobets is celebrating the wedding of his son. Many people came to visit the Esaul. In the old days they loved to eat well, even better they loved to drink, and even better they loved to have fun. The Zaporozhian Mikitka also arrived on his chestnut horse straight from a riotous drinking binge from Altering the fields, where he watered the royal gentry with red wine for seven days and seven nights. The named brother of the Esaul, Danilo Burulbash, also arrived from the other bank of the Dnieper, where, between two mountains, was his farm, with his young wife Katerina and his one-year-old son. The guests marveled at the white face of Mrs. Katerina, black as German velvet, eyebrows, elegant cloth and a blue half-cloth underwear, boots with silver horseshoes; but they were even more amazed that her old father had not come with her. For only a year he lived in the Dnieper region, and twenty-one disappeared without a trace and returned to his daughter when she had already married and gave birth to a son. He probably would have said a lot of wondrous things. But how can you not tell, having been in a foreign land for so long! Everything is different there: the people are not the same, and there are no churches of Christ ... But he did not come.
The guests were offered dumplings with raisins and plums and korovai on a large platter. The musicians began to work on his underside, baked together with the money, and, having quieted down for a while, put cymbals, violins and tambourines near them. Meanwhile, the young ladies and girls, wiped off with their sewn kerchiefs, emerged again from their ranks; and the boys, clutching at their sides, proudly looking at the sides, were ready to rush towards them - just as the old esaul brought out two icons to bless the young. Those icons came to him from the honest schema-monk, Elder Bartholomew. Utensils are not rich in them, neither silver nor gold burns, but no unclean force dares to touch the one with whom they are in the house. Having lifted the icons up, the esaul was preparing to say a short prayer ... when suddenly the children playing on the ground screamed, frightened; and after them the people backed away, and all pointed their fingers with fear at the Cossack who was standing in their midst. Who he was - no one knew. But he had already danced to the glory of the Cossack and had already managed to amuse the crowd that surrounded him. When the esaul raised the icons, his whole face suddenly changed: his nose grew and bent to the side, instead of brown, green eyes jumped, his lips turned blue, his chin trembled and sharpened like a spear, a fang ran out of his mouth, a hump rose from behind his head, and became a Cossack - an old man.
It's him! it's him! - shouted in the crowd, hugging each other closely.
The sorcerer has appeared again! - shouted mothers, grabbing their children in their arms.
Majestically and dignifiedly the esaul stepped forward and said in a loud voice, setting icons against him:
Get lost, the image of Satan, there is no place for you here! - And, with a hiss and snapping teeth like a wolf, a wonderful old man disappeared.
Let's go, let's go and rustle like the sea in bad weather, talk and talk among the people.
Who is this sorcerer? - asked young and unprecedented people.
The trouble will be! - said the old ones, turning their heads.
And everywhere, throughout the wide courtyard of the esaul, they began to gather in small groups and listen to stories about the wonderful sorcerer. But almost everyone spoke differently, and probably no one could tell about him.
A barrel of honey was rolled out into the yard and buckets of walnut wine were placed quite a bit. Everything cheered up again. The musicians burst out; maids, young ladies, dashing cossacks in bright zhupans rushed. Ninety and hundred year olds, having played around, began to dance to themselves, remembering the years that were gone. They feasted until late at night, and feasted in a way that no longer feasts. The guests began to disperse, but few wandered home: a lot was left to spend the night at the Cauldron in the wide courtyard; and even more the Cossacks fell asleep on their own, uninvited, under the benches, on the floor, next to the horse, near the barn; where the Cossack's head swayed from the hops, there it lies and snores all over Kiev.
Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol
Terrible revenge
The end of Kiev is noisy, thundering: the esaul Gorobets is celebrating the wedding of his son. Many people came to visit the Esaul. In the old days they loved to eat well, even better they loved to drink, and even better they loved to have fun. The Zaporozhian Mikitka also arrived on his chestnut horse straight from a riotous drinking binge from Altering the fields, where he watered the royal gentry with red wine for seven days and seven nights. The named brother of the Esaul, Danilo Burulbash, also arrived from the other bank of the Dnieper, where, between two mountains, was his farm, with his young wife Katerina and his one-year-old son. The guests marveled at the white face of Mrs. Katerina, black as German velvet, eyebrows, elegant cloth and a blue half-cloth underwear, boots with silver horseshoes; but they were even more amazed that her old father had not come with her. For only a year he lived in the Dnieper region, and twenty-one disappeared without a trace and returned to his daughter when she had already married and gave birth to a son. He probably would have said a lot of wondrous things. But how can you not tell, having been in a foreign land for so long! Everything is different there: the people are not the same, and there are no churches of Christ ... But he did not come.
The guests were offered dumplings with raisins and plums and korovai on a large platter. The musicians began to work on his underside, baked together with the money, and, having quieted down for a while, put cymbals, violins and tambourines near them. Meanwhile, the young ladies and girls, wiped off with their sewn kerchiefs, emerged again from their ranks; and the boys, clutching at their sides, proudly looking at the sides, were ready to rush towards them - just as the old esaul brought out two icons to bless the young. Those icons came to him from the honest schema-monk, Elder Bartholomew. Utensils are not rich in them, neither silver nor gold burns, but no unclean force dares to touch the one with whom they are in the house. Having lifted the icons up, the esaul was preparing to say a short prayer ... when suddenly the children playing on the ground screamed, frightened; and after them the people backed away, and all pointed their fingers with fear at the Cossack who was standing in their midst. Who he was - no one knew. But he had already danced to the glory of the Cossack and had already managed to amuse the crowd that surrounded him. When the esaul raised the icons, his whole face suddenly changed: his nose grew and bent to the side, instead of brown, green eyes jumped, his lips turned blue, his chin trembled and sharpened like a spear, a fang ran out of his mouth, a hump rose from behind his head, and became a Cossack - an old man.
It's him! it's him! - shouted in the crowd, hugging each other closely.
The sorcerer has appeared again! - shouted mothers, grabbing their children in their arms.
Majestically and dignifiedly the esaul stepped forward and said in a loud voice, setting icons against him:
Get lost, the image of Satan, there is no place for you here! - And, with a hiss and snapping teeth like a wolf, a wonderful old man disappeared.
Let's go, let's go and rustle like the sea in bad weather, talk and talk among the people.
Who is this sorcerer? - asked young and unprecedented people.
The trouble will be! - said the old ones, turning their heads.
And everywhere, throughout the wide courtyard of the esaul, they began to gather in small groups and listen to stories about the wonderful sorcerer. But almost everyone spoke differently, and probably no one could tell about him.
A barrel of honey was rolled out into the yard and buckets of walnut wine were placed quite a bit. Everything cheered up again. The musicians burst out; maids, young ladies, dashing cossacks in bright zhupans rushed. Ninety and hundred year olds, having played around, began to dance to themselves, remembering the years that were gone. They feasted until late at night, and feasted in a way that no longer feasts. The guests began to disperse, but few wandered home: a lot was left to spend the night at the Cauldron in the wide courtyard; and even more the Cossacks fell asleep on their own, uninvited, under the benches, on the floor, next to the horse, near the barn; where the Cossack's head swayed from the hops, there it lies and snores all over Kiev.
It shines quietly all over the world: that month appeared from behind the mountain. As if on a damask road and white as snow, it covered the mountainous bank of the Dnieper with muslin, and the shadow went even further into the thicket of pines.
An oak floated in the middle of the Dnieper. Two lads are sitting in front; black Cossack hats are sideways, and under the oars, as if from a flint fire, spray is flying in all directions.
Why don't the Cossacks sing? They do not talk about how priests are already walking around Ukraine and re-baptizing the Cossack people into Catholics; nor about how the horde fought at Salt Lake for two days. How to sing, how to talk about dashing deeds: their master Danilo became thoughtful, and the sleeve of a crimson zupan sank from an oak tree and draws water; their lady Katerina quietly sways the child and does not take her eyes off him, and water is falling down on the elegant cloth, which is not covered with linen, like gray dust.
Energy drinks: give vigor, but take away health What will happen if you drink 4 energy drinks
Mustard for weight loss: how to use the seasoning with maximum benefit Is it possible for children to have mustard
The benefits and harms of mustard for the human body Table mustard benefits and harms
How to treat the ear after piercing: types of antiseptics, their composition, rules and features of the treatment of a pierced ear
Sistine Chapel in the Vatican: description, history, architectural features