Now let's have a look at what the beautiful daughter was doing, left alone. Oksana had not yet turned seventeen, but already in almost all the world, on this side of Dikanka and on the other, the talk was of nothing but her. The young lads, one and all, declared that there had never been, nor ever would be, a better girl in the village. Oksana knew and heard all that was said about her, and was capricious, as beauties will be. If she had gone about not in a checkered wraparound and a woolen apron, but in some sort of capote, she would have sent all her maids scurrying. The lads chased after her in droves, but, losing patience, gradually dropped out and turned to others less spoiled. The blacksmith alone persisted and would not leave off his wooing, though he was treated no better than the rest.
After her father left, she spent a long time dressing up and putting on airs before a small tin-framed mirror, and couldn't have enough of admiring herself. "Why is it that people decided to praise my prettiness?" she said as if distractedly, so as to chat with herself about something. "People lie, I'm not pretty at all." But in the mirror flashed her fresh face, alive in its child's youngness, with shining dark eyes and an inexpressibly lovely smile which burned the soul through, and all at once proved the opposite. "Are my dark eyebrows and eyes," the beauty went on, not letting go of the mirror, "so pretty that they have no equal in the world? What's so pretty about this upturned nose? and these cheeks? and lips? As if my dark braids are pretty! Ugh! they could be frightening in the evening: they twist and twine around my head like long snakes. I see now that I'm not pretty at all!" and then, holding the mirror further away from her face, she exclaimed: "No, I am pretty! Ah, how pretty! A wonder! What joy I'll bring to the one whose wife I become! How my husband will admire me! He won't know who he is. He'll kiss me to death."
"A wonderful girl!" the blacksmith, who had quietly come in, whispered, "and so little boasting! She's been standing for an hour looking in the mirror and hasn't had enough, and she even praises herself aloud!"
"Yes, lads, am I a match for you? Just look at me," the pretty little coquette went on, "how smooth my step is; my shirt is embroidered with red silk. And what ribbons in my hair! You won't see richer galloons ever! All this my father bought so that the finest fellow in the world would marry me!" And, smiling, she turned around and saw the blacksmith…
She gave a cry and stopped sternly in front of him.
The blacksmith dropped his arms.
It's hard to say what the wonderful girl's dusky face expressed: sternness could be seen in it, and through the sternness a certain mockery of the abashed blacksmith; and a barely noticeable tinge of vexation also spread thinly over her face; all this was so mingled and so indescribably pretty that to kiss her a million times would have been the best thing to do at that moment.
"Why have you come here?" So Oksana began speaking. "Do you want to be driven out the door with a shovel? You're all masters at sidling up to us. You instantly get wind of it when our fathers aren't home. Oh, I know you! What, is my chest ready?"
"It will be ready, my dear heart, it will be ready after the holiday. If you knew how I've worked on it: for two nights I didn't leave the smithy. Not a single priest's daughter will have such a chest. I trimmed it with such iron as I didn't even put on the chief's gig when I went to work in Poltava. And how it will be painted! Go all around the neighborhood with your little white feet and you won't find the like of it! There will be red and blue flowers all over. It will glow like fire. Don't be angry with me! Allow me at least to talk, at least to look at you!"
"Who's forbidding you-talk and look at me!"
Here she sat down on the bench and again looked in the mirror and began straightening the braids on her head. She looked at her neck, at her new silk-embroidered shirt, and a subtle feeling of self-content showed on her lips and her fresh cheeks, and was mirrored in her eyes.
"Allow me to sit down beside you!" said the blacksmith.
"Sit," said Oksana, keeping the same feeling on her lips and in her pleased eyes.
"Wonderful, darling Oksana, allow me to kiss you!" the encouraged blacksmith said and pressed her to him with the intention of snatching a kiss; but Oksana withdrew her cheeks, which were a very short distance from the blacksmith's lips, and pushed him away.
"What more do you want? He's got honey and asks for a spoon! Go away, your hands are harder than iron. And you smell of smoke. I suppose you've made me all sooty."
Here she took the mirror and again began to preen herself.
"She doesn't love me," the blacksmith thought to himself, hanging his head. "It's all a game for her. And I stand before her like a fool, not taking my eyes off her. And I could just go on standing before her and never take my eyes off her! A wonderful girl! I'd give anything to find out what's in her heart, whom she loves! But, no, she doesn't care about anybody. She admires her own self; she torments poor me; and I'm blind to the world from sorrow; I love her as no one in the world has ever loved or ever will love."
"Is it true your mothers a witch?" said Oksana, and she laughed; and the blacksmith felt everything inside him laugh. It was as if this laughter echoed all at once in his heart and in his quietly aroused nerves, and at the same time vexation came over his soul that it was not in his power to cover this so nicely laughing face with kisses.
"What do I care about my mother? You are my mother, and my father, and all that's dear in the world. If the tsar summoned me and said: 'Blacksmith Vakula, ask me for whatever is best in my kingdom, and I will give it all to you. I'll order a golden smithy made for you, and you'll forge with silver hammers.' I'd say to the tsar: 'I don't want precious stones, or a golden smithy, or all your kingdom: better give me my Oksana!'"
"See how you are! Only my father is nobody's fool. You'll see if he doesn't marry your mother," Oksana said with a sly smile. "Anyhow, the girls are not here… what could that mean? It's long since time for caroling. I'm beginning to get bored."
"Forget them, my beauty."
"Ah, no! they'll certainly come with the lads. We'll have a grand party. I can imagine what funny stories they'll have to tell!"
"So you have fun with them?"
"More fun than with you. Ah! somebody's knocking; it must be the lads and girls."
"Why should I wait anymore?" the blacksmith said to himself. "She taunts me. I'm as dear to her as a rusty horseshoe. But if so, at least no other man is going to have the laugh on me. Just let me see for certain that she likes somebody else more than me-I'll teach him…"
The knocking at the door and the cry of "Open!" sounding sharply in the frost interrupted his reflections.
"Wait, I'll open it myself," said the blacksmith, and he stepped into the front hall, intending in his vexation to give a drubbing to the first comer.
It was freezing, and up aloft it got so cold that the devil kept shifting from one hoof to the other and blowing into his palms, trying to warm his cold hands at least a little. It's no wonder, however, that somebody would get cold who had knocked about all day in hell, where, as we know, it is not so cold as it is here in winter, and where, a chef's hat on his head and standing before the hearth like a real cook, he had been roasting sinners with as much pleasure as any woman roasts sausages at Christmas.
The witch herself felt the cold, though she was warmly dressed; and so, arms up and leg to one side, in the posture of someone racing along on skates, without moving a joint, she descended through the air, as if down an icy slope, and straight into the chimney.
The devil followed after her in the same fashion. But since this beast is nimbler than any fop in stockings, it was no wonder that at the very mouth of the chimney he came riding down on his lover's neck, and the two ended up inside the big oven among the pots.