In Dikanka nobody realized that the devil had stolen the moon. True, the local scrivener, leaving the tavern on all fours, saw the moon dancing about in the sky for no reason and swore to it by God before the whole village; but people shook their heads and even made fun of him. But what led the devil to decide on such a lawless business? Here's what: he knew that the wealthy Cossack Choub had been invited for kutya 1 by the deacon, and that there would also be the headman, a relative of the deacon's in a blue frock coat who sang in the bishop's choir and could hit the lowest bass notes, the Cossack Sverbyguz, and others; that besides kutya there would be spiced vodka, saffron vodka, and lots of other things to eat. And meanwhile his daughter, the beauty of the village, would stay at home, and this daughter would certainly be visited by the blacksmith, a stalwart and fine fellow, whom the devil found more disgusting than Father Kondrat's sermons. The blacksmith devoted his leisure time to painting and was reputed to be the best artist in the whole neighborhood. The then still-living chief Lko himself had summoned him specially to Poltava to paint the wooden fence around his house. All the bowls from which the Dikanka Cossacks supped their borscht had been decorated by the blacksmith. The blacksmith was a God-fearing man and often painted icons of the saints: even now you can find his evangelist Luke in the Tchurch. But the triumph of his art was one picture painted on the church wall in the right-hand vestibule, in which he portrayed Saint Peter on the day of the Last Judgment, with the keys in his hand, driving the evil spirit out of hell; the frightened devil is rushing in all directions, sensing his doom, and the formerly confined sinners are beating him and driving him about with whips, sticks, and whatever else they can find. All the while the artist was working on this picture, painting it on a big wooden board, the devil tried as hard as he could to hinder him: shoved his arm invisibly, raised up ashes from the forge in the smithy and poured them over the picture; but the work got done despite all, the board was brought to church and set into the wall in the vestibule, and ever since then the devil had sworn vengeance on the blacksmith.
One night only was left him to wander about the wide world, but on this night, too, he sought some way to vent his anger on the blacksmith. And for that he decided to steal the moon, in hopes that old Choub was lazy and not easy to budge, and the deacon's place was not all that close to his: the road went beyond the village, past the mills, past the cemetery, and around the gully. If it had been a moonlit night, the spiced vodka and saffron vodka might have tempted Choub, but in such darkness you would hardly succeed in dragging him down from the stove 2 and getting him out of the cottage. And the blacksmith, who had long been on bad terms with him, would never dare visit his daughter with him there, for all his strength.
So it was that, as soon as the devil hid the moon in his pocket, it suddenly became so dark all over the world that no one could find the way to the tavern, to say nothing of the deacon's. The witch, seeing herself suddenly in the dark, cried out. Here the devil, sidling up to her, took her under the arm and started whispering in her ear what is usually whispered to the whole of womankind. Wondrous is the working of the world! All who live in it try to mimic and mock one another. Before, it used to be that in Mir-gorod only the judge and the mayor went about during the winter in cloth-covered sheepskin coats, and all of petty clerkdom wore plain uncovered ones; but now both the assessor and the surveyor have got themselves up in new coats of Reshetilovo astrakhan covered with broadcloth. Two years ago the clerk and the local scrivener bought themselves some blue Chinese cotton for sixty kopecks a yard. The sacristan had baggy summer trousers of nankeen and a waistcoat of striped worsted made for himself. In short, everything tries to get ahead! When will these people cease their vanity! I'll bet many would be surprised to see the devil getting up to it as well. What's most vexing is that he must fancy he's a handsome fellow, whereas-it's shameful to look him in the face. A mug, as Foma Grigorievich says, that's the vilest of the vile, and yet he, too, goes philandering! But it got so dark in the sky, and under the sky, that it was no longer possible to see what went on further between them.
"So, chum, you haven't been to the deacon's new house yet?" the Cossack Choub was saying as he came out the door of his cottage to a tall, lean muzhik in a short sheepskin jacket with a stubbly chin that showed it hadn't been touched in over two weeks by the broken piece of scythe a muzhik usually shaves with for lack of a razor. "There'll be good drinking there tonight!" Choub continued, with a grin on his face. "We'd better not be late."
With that, Choub straightened the belt that tightly girded his coat, pulled his hat down hard, clutched his knout-a terror and threat to bothersome dogs-but, looking up, he stopped…
"What the devil! Look, look, Panas!…"
"What?" said his chum, and also threw his head back.
"How, what? There's no moon!"
"What the deuce! It's a fact, there's no moon."
"None at all," said Choub, somewhat vexed at the chum's unfailing indifference. "Not that you care, I suppose."
"But what can I do?"
"It had to happen," Choub went on, wiping his mustache on his sleeve, "some devil-may the dog have no glass of vodka in the morning-had to interfere!… Really, as if for a joke… I looked out the window on purpose as I sat inside: a wonder of a night! Clear, snow shining in the moonlight. Everything bright as day. The moment I step out the door-it's pitch-dark!"
Choub spent a long time grumbling and swearing, all the while pondering what to decide. He was dying to chatter about all sorts of nonsense at the deacon's, where, without any doubt, the headman was already sitting, and the visiting bass, and the tar dealer Mikita, who went off to the Poltava market every two weeks and cracked such jokes that good people held their sides from laughter.
Choub could already picture mentally the spiced vodka standing on the table. All this was tempting, it's true; but the darkness of the night reminded him of the laziness so dear to all Cossacks. How good it would be to lie on the stove now, with his knees bent, calmly smoking his pipe and listening, through an entrancing drowsiness, to the carols and songs of the merry lads and girls coming in crowds to the windows. He would, without any doubt, have decided on the latter if he had been alone, but now for the two of them it would not be so boring or scary to walk through the dark night, and he did not really want to appear lazy or cowardly before the others. Having finished swearing, he again turned to the chum:
"So there's no moon, chum?"
"No."
"It's odd, really! Give me a pinch. Fine snuff you've got there, chum! Where do you get it?"
"The devil it's fine," replied the chum, closing the birchbark pouch all covered with pinpricked designs. "It wouldn't make an old hen sneeze!"
"I remember," Choub went on in the same way, "the late tavern keeper Zozulia once brought me some snuff from Nezhin. Ah, what snuff that was! such good snuff! So, then, chum, what are we going to do? It's dark out."
"Let's stay home, then, if you like," said the chum, grasping the door handle.
If the chum hadn't said it, Choub would certainly have decided to stay home, but now something seemed to tug at him to do the contrary.
"No, chum, let's go! It's impossible, we have to go!"
Having said that, he was already annoyed with himself for it. He very much disliked dragging himself anywhere on such a night; but it was a comfort to him that he himself had purposely wanted it and was not doing as he had been advised.
The chum, showing not the least vexation on his face, like a man to whom it was decidedly all the same whether he stayed home or dragged himself out, looked around, scratched his shoul- ders with the butt of his whip, and the two chums set out on their way.