"Oh-ho! there's no stopping you with words!…" Following these words, Choub felt a most painful blow to his shoulder.
"So, I see you're already starting to fight!" he said, retreating a little.
"Away, away!" the blacksmith cried, awarding Choub another shove.
"What's with you!" said Choub, in a voice that expressed pain, vexation, and timorousness. "I see you fight seriously, and painfully, too!"
"Away, away with you!" the blacksmith shouted and slammed the door.
"What a brave one!" Choub said, left alone outside. "Try going near him! Just look at the big jackanapes! You think I can't get justice against you? No, my dear, I'll go, and go straight to the com- missar. You'll learn about me! I don't care that you're a blacksmith and a painter. If I could see my back and shoulders, I suppose they'd be black and blue. He must have beaten me badly, the devil's son! A pity it's cold and I don't want to take my coat off! You wait, fiendish blacksmith, may the devil smash up you and your smithy, I'll set you dancing! So there, you cursed gallowsbird! He's not at home now, though. I suppose Solokha is sitting there alone. Hm… it's not so far from here-why not go! No one else would come in such weather. Maybe it'll be possible… Ohh, what a painful beating that cursed blacksmith gave me!"
Here Choub rubbed his back and set out in the other direction. The pleasantness waiting ahead in the meeting with Solokha lessened the pain somewhat and made him insensible to the frost itself, which crackled in all the streets, not muffled by the blizzard's whistling. At times his face, on which the snowstorm soaped the heard and mustache more deftly than any barber tyrannically seizing his victim by the nose, acquired a half sweet look. And yet, had it not been for the snow that criss-crossed everything before the eyes, you could long have seen Choub stopping, rubbing his back, saying, "A painful beating that cursed blacksmith gave me!" and moving on again.
While the nimble fop with the tail and the goat's beard was flying cut of the chimney and back into it, the little pouch that hung on a strap at his side, in which he had put the stolen moon, somehow accidentally caught on something in the oven and came open, and the moon seized the opportunity and, flying out of the chimney of Solokha's house, rose smoothly into the sky. Every-thing lit up. It was as if there had been no blizzard. The snow gleamed in wide, silvery fields and was all sprinkled with crystal stars. The frost seemed to grow warmer. Crowds of lads and girls appeared with sacks. Songs rang out, and it was a rare house that had no carolers crowding before it.
Wondrously the moon shines! It's hard to describe how good it is to jostle about on such a night with a bunch of laughing and singing girls and lads ready for every joke and prank that a merrily laughing night can inspire. It's warm under your thick sheepskin; your cheeks burn still brighter with the frost; and the evil one himself pushes you into mischief from behind.
A crowd of girls with sacks barged into Choub's house and surrounded Oksana. Shouts, laughter, stories deafened the blacksmith. Interrupting each other, they all hastened to tell the beauty some new thing, unloaded their sacks and boasted about the loaves, sausages, and dumplings, of which they had already collected plenty for their caroling. Oksana seemed perfecdy pleased and happy; she chatted, now with this girl, now with that, and laughed all the while. With some vexation and envy the blacksmith looked on at their merriment, and this time he cursed caroling, though he used to lose his mind over it.
"Ah, Odarka!" the merry beauty said, turning to one of the girls, "you have new booties! Oh, what pretty ones! and with gold! You're lucky, Odarka, you have a man who buys everything for you; and I don't have anyone to get me such nice booties."
"Don't grieve, my darling Oksana!" the blacksmith picked up. "It's a rare young lady who wears such booties as I'll get for you."
"You?" Oksana said, giving him a quick and haughty glance. "I'd like to see where you're going to get booties such as I could wear on my feet. Unless you bring me the ones the tsaritsa wears."
"See what she wants!" the crowd of girls shouted, laughing.
"Yes," the beauty proudly continued, "you'll all be witnesses: if the blacksmith Vakula brings me the very booties the tsaritsa wears, I give my word that I'll marry him at once."
The girls took the capricious beauty with them.
"Laugh, laugh!" said the blacksmith, following them out. "I'm laughing at my own self! I think, and can't decide what's become of my reason. She doesn't love me-so, God be with her! As if Oksana's the only one in the world. Thank God, there are lots of nice girls in the village besides her. And what is this Oksana? She'd never make a good housewife; she's only good at dressing herself up. No, enough, it's time to stop playing the fool."
But just as the blacksmith was preparing to be resolute, some evil spirit carried before him the laughing image of Oksana, saying mockingly: "Get the tsaritsa's booties for me, blacksmith, and I'll marry you!" Everything in him was stirred, and he could think of nothing but Oksana.
Crowds of carolers, the lads separately and the girls separately, hastened from one street to another. But the blacksmith walked along without seeing anything or taking part in the merriment that he used to love more than anyone else.
The devil meanwhile was indulging himself in earnest at Solokha's: kissed her hand, mugging like an assessor at a priest's daughter, pressed his hand to his heart, sighed, and said straight out that if she did not agree to satisfy his passions and reward him in the customary way, he was ready for anything: he'd throw himself in the water and send his soul straight to hellfire. Solokha was not so cruel, and besides, the devil, as is known, acted in cahoots with her. She did like seeing a crowd dangling after her, and she was rarely without company; however, she had thought she would spend that evening alone, because all the notable inhabitants of the village had been invited for kutya at the deacon's. But everything turned out otherwise: the devil had just presented his demand when suddenly the voice of the stalwart headman was heard. Solokha ran to open the door, and the nimble devil got into one of the sacks lying there.
The headman, after shaking the snow off the earflaps of his hat and drinking the glass of vodka that Solokha handed him, said that he had not gone to the deacon's on account of the blizzard, and seeing a light in her house, had stopped by, intending to spend the evening with her.
Before the headman finished speaking, there came a knocking at the door and the voice of the deacon.
"Hide me somewhere," the headman whispered. "I don't want to meet the deacon right now."
Solokha thought for a long time where to hide such a stout guest; she finally chose the biggest sack of coal; she dumped the coal into a barrel, and the stalwart headman got into it, mustache, head, earflaps, and all.
The deacon came in, grunting and rubbing his hands, and said that none of his guests had come, and that he was heartily glad of this opportunity to sport a little at her place and the blizzard did not frighten him. Here he came closer to her, coughed, smiled, touched her bare, plump arm with his long fingers, and uttered with an air that showed both slyness and self-satisfaction:
"And what have you got here, magnificent Solokha?" And having said it, he jumped back slightly.
"How-what? An arm, Osip Nikiforovich!" replied Solokha.
"Hm! an arm! heh, heh, heh!" said the deacon, heartily pleased with his beginning, and he made a tour of the room.
"And what have you got here, dearest Solokha?" he uttered with the same air, having accosted her again and taken her lightly by the neck, and jumping back in the same way.
"As if you can't see, Osip Nikiforovich!" replied Solokha. "A neck, and on that neck a necklace."
"Hm! a necklace on the neck! heh, heh, heh!" And the deacon made another tour of the room, rubbing his hands.