"I can't breathe! I can't breathe!" he moaned in a wild, inhuman voice. Like a knife blade his voice scraped at the heart, and the dead man suddenly sank under the ground. Another cross swayed, and again a dead man came out, still taller, still more terrible than the first; all overgrown, beard down to his knees, and still longer, bony nails. Still more wildly he cried: "I can't breathe!" and sank under the ground. A third cross swayed, a third dead man rose. It seemed as if nothing but bones rose high over the ground. Beard down to his very heels; fingers with long claws stuck into the ground. Terribly he stretched his arms upwards, as if trying to reach the moon, and cried out as if someone were sawing at his yellow bones. . .
The baby asleep in Katerina's arms gave a cry and woke up. The mistress herself gave a cry. The oarsmen dropped their hats into the Dnieper. The master himself shook.
Suddenly it all disappeared as if it had never been; nevertheless, the lads did not take up their oars for a long time.
Anxiously did Burulbash look at his young wife, who fearfully rocked the crying baby in her arms; he pressed her to his heart and kissed her on the brow.
"Don't be afraid, Katerina! Look, there's nothing!" he said, pointing all around. "It's the sorcerer trying to frighten people, so that no one gets into his unclean nest. He'll only frighten women with that! Give my son here!" With these words, Master Danilo raised his son to his lips. "What, Ivan, you're not afraid of sorcerers? No, papa, he says, I'm a Cossack. Enough, then, stop crying! We'll go home! we'll go home—mother will feed you porridge, put you to bed in your cradle, and sing: Lullay, lullay, lullay, Lullay, little son, lullay, Grow up, grow up wise, Win glory in the Cossacks' eyes, And punish their enemies.
Listen, Katerina, it seems to me your father doesn't want to live in accord with us. He arrived sullen, stern, as if he's angry . . . Well, if you're displeased, then why come? He didn't want to drink to Cossack freedom, he didn't rock the baby in his arms! First I wanted to confide everything in my heart to him, but it didn't come out, and my speech stumbled. No, his is not a Cossack's heart! Cossack hearts, when they meet, never fail to go out to each other!
What, my sweet lads, it's soon the shore? Well, I'll give you new hats. To you, Stetsko, I'll give a velvet one with gold. I took it from a Tartar, along with his head. I got all his gear; only his soul I let go free. Well, tie up! Here, Ivan, we've come home and you keep on crying! Take him, Katerina!"
They all got out. A thatched roof showed from behind the hill: the ancestral mansion of Master Danilo. Beyond it another hill, then a field, and then you could walk for a hundred miles and not find even one Cossack.
III
MASTER DANILO’S FARMSTEAD lies between two hills, in a narrow valley that runs down to the Dnieper. His mansion is not tall: a cottage by the looks, like those of simple Cossacks, and only one room in it; but there is enough space inside for him, and his wife, and the old serving woman, and ten choice youths. There are oak shelves up on the walls all around. They are laden with bowls and pots for eating. There are silver goblets among them and glasses trimmed with gold—gifts or the plunder of war. Below them hang costly muskets, sabers, harquebuses, lances. Willingly or unwillingly they were passed on from Tartars, Turks, and Polacks; and so they are not a little nicked. Looking at them, Master Danilo recalled his battles as if by banners. Along the wall, smoothly hewn oak benches. Next to them, before the stove seat, 4 a cradle hangs on ropes put through a ring screwed into the ceiling. The floor of the room is beaten smooth and covered with clay. On the benches Master Danilo sleeps with his wife. On the stove seat sleeps the old serving woman. In the cradle the little baby sports and is lulled to sleep. On the floor the youths lie side by side. But it is better for a Cossack to sleep on the level ground under the open sky; he needs no down or feather beds; he puts fresh hay under his head and sprawls freely on the grass. It delights him to wake up in the middle of the night, to gaze at the tall, star-strewn sky and shiver from the cool of the night that refreshes his Cossack bones. Stretching and murmuring in his sleep, he lights his pipe and wraps himself tighter in his warm sheepskin.
It was not early that Burulbash woke up after the previous day's merrymaking, and when he did wake up, he sat in the corner on the bench and began to sharpen a new Turkish saber he had taken in trade; and Mistress Katerina started to embroider a silken towel with gold.
Suddenly Katerina's father came in, angry, scowling, with an outlandish pipe in his teeth, approached his daughter, and began to question her sternly: What was the reason for her coming home so late?
"About such things, father-in-law, you should ask me, not her! The husband is answerable, not the wife. That's how it is with us, meaning no offense to you!" said Danilo, without quitting his occupation. "Maybe there, in infidel lands, it's different—I wouldn't know."
Color came to the father-in-law's stern face, and his eyes glinted savagely.
"Who, if not a father, is to look after his daughter!" he muttered to himself. "I ask you, then: Where were you dragging about till late in the night?"
"Now you're talking, dear father-in-law! To that I will tell you that I'm long past the age of being swaddled by women. I can seat a horse. I can wield a sharp saber with my hand. I can do a thing or two besides .. I can answer to no one for what I do."
"I see, Danilo, I know, you want a quarrel! Whoever hides himself must have evil things on his mind."
"Think what you like," said Danilo, "and I'll think, too. Thank God, I've never yet been part of any dishonorable thing; I've always stood for the Orthodox faith and the fatherland—not like some vagabonds who drag about God knows where while Orthodox people are fighting to the death, and then come down to reap where they haven't sown. They're not even like the Uniates5: they never peek inside a church of God. It's they who should be questioned properly about where they drag about."
"Eh, Cossack! you know. . . I'm a bad shot: from a mere two hundred yards my bullet pierces the heart. I'm an unenviable swordsman: what I leave of a man is smaller than the grains they cook for porridge."
"I'm ready," said Master Danilo, briskly passing his saber through the air, as though he knew what he had been sharpening it for.
"Danilo!" Katerina cried loudly, seizing his arm and clinging to it. "Bethink yourself, madman! Look who you are raising your hand against! Father, your hair is white as snow, yet you flare up like a senseless boy!"
"Wife!" Master Danilo cried menacingly, "you know I don't like that. Mind your woman's business!"
The sabers clanged terribly; iron cut against iron, and sparks poured down like dust over the Cossacks. Weeping, Katerina went to her own room, threw herself down on the bed, and stopped her ears so as not to hear the saber blows. But the Cossacks did not fight so poorly that she could stifle the blows. Her heart was about to burst asunder. She felt the sound go through her whole body: clang, clang. "No, I can't bear it, I can't bear it. . . Maybe the red blood already spurts from his white body. Maybe my dear one is weakening now—and I lie here!" All pale, scarcely breathing, she went out to the room.
Steadily and terribly the Cossacks fought. Neither one could overpower the other. Now Katerina's father attacks—Master Danilo retreats. Master Danilo attacks—the stern father retreats, and again they are even. The pitch of battle. They swing . . . ough! the sabers clang . . .and the blades fly clattering aside.
"God be thanked!" said Katerina, but she cried out again when she saw the Cossacks take hold of muskets. They checked the flints, cocked the hammers.
Master Danilo shot—and missed. The father aimed . . . He is old, his sight is not so keen as the young man's, yet his hand does not tremble. A shot rang out. . . Master Danilo staggered. Red blood stained the left sleeve of his Cossack jacket.
"No!" he cried, "I won't sell myself so cheaply. Not the left arm but the right is the chief. I have a Turkish pistol hanging on the wall; never once in my life has it betrayed me. Come down from the wall, old friend! do me service!" Danilo reached out.
"Da
nilo!" Katerina cried in despair, seizing his hands and throwing herself at his feet. "I do not plead for myself. There is only one end for me: unworthy is the wife who lives on after her husband. The Dnieper, the cold Dnieper will be my grave . . . But look at your son, Danilo, look at your son! Who will shelter the poor child? Who will care for him? Who will teach him to fly on a black steed, to fight for freedom and the faith, to drink and carouse like a Cossack?
Perish, my son, perish! Your father does not want to know you! Look how he turns his face away. Oh! I know you now! you're a beast, not a man! you have the heart of a wolf and the soul of a sly vermin. I thought you had a drop of pity in you, that human feeling burned in your stony body. Madly was I mistaken. It will bring you joy. Your bones will dance for joy in your coffin when they hear the impious Polack beasts throw your son into the flames, when your son screams under knives and scalding water. Oh, I know you! You will be glad to rise from your coffin and fan the fire raging under him with your hat!"
"Enough, Katerina! Come, my beloved Ivan, I will kiss you! No, my child, no one will touch even one hair on your head. You will grow up to be the glory of your fatherland; like the wind you will fly in the forefront of the Cossacks, a velvet hat on your head, a sharp saber in your hand. Father, give me your hand! Let us forget what has happened between us. Whatever wrong I did you, the fault was mine. Why won't you give me your hand?" Danilo said to Katerina's father, who stood in one spot, his face expressing neither anger nor reconciliation.
"Father!" Katerina cried out, embracing and kissing him. "Do not be implacable. Forgive Danilo: he will not upset you anymore!"
"For your sake only do I forgive him, my daughter!" he said, kissing her, with a strange glint in his eyes. Katerina gave a slight start: the kiss seemed odd to her, as did the strange glint in his eyes. She leaned her elbow on the table, at which Master Danilo sat bandaging his wounded arm and thinking now that it was wrong and not like a Cossack to ask forgiveness when one was not guilty of anything.
IV
THERE WAS A glimmer of daylight but no sun: the sky was louring and a fine rain sprinkled the fields, the forests, the wide Dnieper. Mistress Katerina woke up, but not joyfully: tears in her eyes, and all of her confused and troubled.
"My beloved husband, dear husband, I had a strange dream!"
"What dream, my sweet mistress Katerina?"
"I dreamed—it was truly strange, and so alive, as if I was awake—I dreamed that my father is that same monster we saw at the captain's. But I beg you, don't believe in dreams. One can see all sorts of foolishness! It was as if I was standing before him, trembling all over, frightened, and every word he said made all my fibers groan. If only you had heard what he said . . ."
"What was it he said, my golden Katerina?"
"He said, 'Look at me, Katerina, I am handsome! People should not say I am ugly. I will make you a fine husband. See what a look is in my eyes!' Here he aimed his fiery eyes at me, I gave a cry and woke up."
"Yes, dreams tell much truth. However, do you know that things are not so quiet behind the hill? It seems the Polacks have begun to show up again. Gorobets has sent to tell me not to be caught napping. He needn't worry, though; I'm not napping as it is. My lads cut down twelve big trees for barricades last night. The Pospolitstvo6 will be treated to lead plums, and the gentlemen will dance under our knouts."
"Does my father know about it?"
"Your father is a weight on my neck! I still can't figure him out. He must have committed many sins in foreign lands. What, indeed, can be the reason? He's lived here for nearly a month and has never once made merry like a good Cossack! He refused to drink mead! do you hear, Katerina, he refused to drink the mead I shook out of the Jews in Brest. Hey, lad!" cried Master Danilo. "Run to the cellar, my boy, and fetch me some Jewish mead! . . . He doesn't even drink vodka! Confound it! I don't think, Mistress Katerina, that he believes in Christ the Lord either! Eh? What do you think?"
"God knows what you're saying, Master Danilo!"
"It's strange, Mistress!" he went on, taking the clay mug from the Cossack. "Even the foul Catholics fall for vodka; only the Turks don't drink. Well, Stetsko, did you have a good sup of mead in the cellar?"
"Just a taste, Master!"
"Lies, you son of a bitch! look at the flies going for your mustache! I can see by your eyes that you downed half a bucket! Eh, Cossacks! such wicked folk! ready for anything for a comrade, but he'll take care of the liquor all by himself. I haven't been drunk for a long time—eh, Mistress Katerina?"
"Long, you say! And the last time . . ."
"Don't worry, don't worry, I won't drink more than a mug! And here comes a Turkish abbot squeezing in the door!" he said through his teeth, seeing his father-in-law stooping to enter.
"What is this, my daughter!" the father said, taking off his hat and straightening his belt, from which hung a saber studded with wondrous stones. "The sun is already high, and you have no dinner ready."
"Dinner is ready, my father, we will serve it now! Get out the pot with the dumplings!" said Mistress Katerina to the old serving woman who was wiping the wooden bowls. "Wait, I'd better take it out myself," Katerina went on, "and you call the lads."
Everyone sat on the floor in a circle: the father facing the icon corner, Master Danilo to the left, Mistress Katerina to the right, and the ten trusty youths in blue and yellow jackets.
"I don't like these dumplings!" said the father, having eaten a little and putting down the spoon. "They have no taste!"
"I know," Master Danilo thought to himself, "you prefer Jewish noodles."
"Why, my father-in-law," he went on aloud, "do you say the dumplings have no taste? Are they poorly prepared? My Katerina makes such dumplings as even a hetman7 rarely gets to eat. There's no need to be squeamish about them. It's Christian food! All God's saints and holy people ate dumplings."
Not a word from the father. Master Danilo also fell silent. A roast boar with cabbage and plums was served.
"I don't like pork," said Katerina's father, raking up the cabbage with his spoon.
"Why would you not like pork?" said Danilo. "Only Turks and Jews don't like pork."
The father frowned even more sternly. Milk gruel was all the old father ate, and instead of vodka he sipped some black water from a flask he kept in his bosom.
After dinner, Danilo fell into a mighty hero's sleep and woke up only toward evening. He sat down and began writing letters to the Cossack army; and Mistress Katerina, sitting on the stove seat, rocked the cradle with her foot. Master Danilo sits and looks with his left eye at his writing and with his right eye out the window. And from the window the gleam of the distant hills and the Dnieper can be seen. Beyond the Dnieper, mountains show blue. Up above sparkles the now clear night sky. But it is not the distant sky or the blue forest that Master Danilo admires: he gazes at the jutting spit of land on which the old castle blackens. He fancied that light flashed in a narrow window of the castle. But all is quiet. He must have imagined it. Only the muted rush of the Dnieper can be heard below, and on three sides, one after the other, the echo of momentarily awakened waves. The river is not mutinous. He grumbles and murmurs like an old man: nothing pleases him; everything has changed around him; he is quietly at war with the hills, forests, and meadows on his banks, and carries his complaint against them to the Black Sea. Now a boat blackened on the wide Dnieper, and again something as if flashed in the castle. Danilo whistled softly, and at his whistle the trusty lad came running.
"Quick, Stetsko, take your sharp saber and your musket and follow me."
"You're going out?" asked Mistress Katerina.
"I'm going out, wife. I must look around everywhere to see if all is well."
"But I'm afraid to stay by myself. I'm so sleepy. What if I have the same dream? I'm not even sure it was a dream—it was so lifelike."
"The old woman will stay with you; and in the front hall and outside Cossacks are sleeping!"
"The old woman is already a
sleep, and I somehow do not trust the Cossacks. Listen, Master Danilo, lock me in my room and take the key with you. I won't be so afraid then. And let the Cossacks lie outside my door."
"So be it!" said Danilo, wiping the dust from his musket and pouring powder into the pan.
The trusty Stetsko already stood dressed in full Cossack gear. Danilo put on his astrakhan hat, closed the window, latched the door, locked it, and quietly went out through the yard, between his sleeping Cossacks, into the hills.
The sky was almost completely clear. A fresh wind barely wafted from the Dnieper. If it had not been for the moaning of a gull from far off, all would have been mute. But then there seemed to come a rustling . . . Burulbash and his trusty servant quietly hid behind the thorn bush that covered a felled tree. Someone in a red jacket, with two pistols and a sword at his side, was going down the hill.
"It's my father-in-law!" said Master Danilo, peering at him from behind the bush. "Where is he going at this hour, and why? Stetsko! don't gape, watch with all your eyes for which path master father will take." The man in the red jacket went right down to the bank and turned toward the jutting spit of land. "Ah! it's there!" said Master Danilo. "So, Stetsko, he's dragging himself straight to the sorcerer's hole."
"Yes, surely nowhere else, Master Danilo! otherwise we'd see him on the other side. But he disappeared near the castle."
"Wait, let's get out and then follow in his tracks. There must be something to it. No, Katerina, I told you your father was a bad man; he does nothing in the Orthodox way."
Master Danilo and his trusty lad flitted out on the jutting bank. Now they were no longer visible. The forest fastness around the castle hid them. The upper window lit up with a soft light. The Cossacks stand below thinking how to climb inside. No gates or doors are to be seen. There must be a way from the courtyard; but how to get in there! From far off the clank of chains and the running of dogs can be heard.
The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol Page 10