"And what have you got here, incomparable Solokha?…" Who knows what the deacon would have touched this time with his long fingers, but suddenly there came a knocking at the door and the voice of the Cossack Choub.
"Ah, my God, an extraneous person!" the frightened deacon cried. "What now, if someone of my station is found here?… It'll get back to Father Kondrat!…"
But the deacon's real apprehensions were of another sort: he feared still more that his better half might find out, who even without that had turned his thick braid into a very thin one with her terrible hand.
"For God's sake, virtuous Solokha," he said, trembling all over. "Your kindness, as it says in the Gospel of Luke, chapter thir-th- Knocking! By God, there's knocking! Oh, hide me somewhere!"
Solokha poured the coal from another sack into the barrel, and the none-too-voluminous deacon got in and sat down at the bottom, so that another half sack of coal could have been poured on top of him.
"Good evening, Solokha!" said Choub, coming in. "Maybe you weren't expecting me, eh? it's true you weren't? maybe I'm interfering with you?…" Choub went on, putting a cheerful and significant look on his face, which let it be known beforehand that his clumsy head was toiling in preparation for cracking some sharp and ingenious joke. "Maybe you've been having fun here with somebody?… Maybe you've already hidden somebody away, eh?" And, delighted with this last remark, Choub laughed, inwardly triumphant that he alone enjoyed Solokha's favors. "Well, Solokha, now give me some vodka. I think my throat got frozen in this cursed cold. What a night before Christmas God has sent us! When it struck, Solokha, do you hear, when it struck-eh, my hands are quite numb, I can't unbutton my coat!-when the blizzard struck…"
"Open up!" a voice came from outside, accompanied by a shove at the door.
"Somebody's knocking," Choub said, breaking off.
"Open up!" the cry came, louder than before.
"It's the blacksmith!" said Choub, clutching his earflaps. "Listen, Solokha, put me wherever you like; not for anything in the world do I want to show myself to that cursed bastard, may the devil's son get himself blisters as big as haystacks under each eye!"
Solokha, frightened, rushed about in panic and, forgetting herself, gestured for Choub to get into the same sack where the deacon was already sitting. The poor deacon didn't even dare to show his pain by coughing or grunting when the heavy fellow sat almost on his head and stuck his frozen boots on both sides of his temples.
The blacksmith came in without saying a word or taking off his hat and all but collapsed on the bench. He was noticeably in very low spirits.
Just as Solokha was closing the door after him, someone knocked again. This was the Cossack Sverbyguz. This one could not be hidden in a sack, because it would have been impossible to find such a sack. He was more corpulent than the headman and taller than Choub's chum. And so Solokha led him out to the kitchen garden to hear all that he had to tell her.
The blacksmith looked distractedly around the corners of the room, catching from time to time the far-resounding songs of the carolers. He finally rested his eyes on the sacks: "Why are these sacks lying here? They should have been taken out long ago. I've grown all befuddled on account of this stupid love. Tomorrow's a feast day, and there's all this trash lying around the house. I must take them to the smithy."
Here the blacksmith crouched down by the huge sacks, tied them tightly, and was about to haul them onto his shoulders. But it was obvious that his thoughts were wandering God knows where, otherwise he would have heard Choub hiss when his hair got caught by the rope that tied the sack and the stalwart headman begin to hiccup quite audibly.
"Can it be that this worthless Oksana will never get out of my head?" the blacksmith said. "I don't want to think about her, yet I do, and, as if on purpose, about nothing but her. What makes the thought come into my head against my will? Why the devil do these sacks seem heavier than before! There must be something in them besides coal. Fool that I am! I forgot that everything seems heavier to me now. Before, I used to be able to bend and unbend a copper coin or a horseshoe with one hand, and now I can't lift a sack of coal. Soon the wind will knock me down. No," he cried, cheering up after a pause, "what a woman I am! I won't let anybody laugh at me! Let it even be ten sacks, I'll lift them all." And he briskly hauled sacks onto his shoulders that two strong men would have been unable to carry. "This one, too," he went on, picking up the small one, at the bottom of which the devil lay curled up. "I think I put my tools in it." Having said which, he left the house whistling the song:
No bothering with a wife for me.
Noisier and noisier sounded the songs and shouts in the streets. The crowds of jostling folk were increased by those coming from neighboring villages. The lads frolicked and horsed around freely. Often amidst the carols one could hear some merry song made up on the spot by some young Cossack. Then suddenly one of the crowd, instead of a carol, would roar a New Year's song at the top of his lungs:
Humpling, mumpling! Give me a dumpling, A big ring of sausage, A bowl full of porridge!
Loud laughter would reward the funny man. A little window would be raised, and the lean arm of an old woman-they were the only ones to stay inside now with the grave fathers-would reach out with a sausage or a piece of pie. Lads and girls held up their sacks, trying to be the first to catch the booty. In one spot the lads came from all sides and surrounded a group of girls: noise, shouts, one threw a snowball, another grabbed a sack with all sorts of things in it. Elsewhere the girls caught a lad, tripped him and sent him flying headlong to the ground together with his sack. It seemed they were ready to make merry all night long. And the night, as if on purpose, glowed so luxuriantly! And the glistening snow made the moonlight seem whiter still.
The blacksmith stopped with his sacks. He imagined he heard Oksana's voice and thin laughter in the crowd of girls. Every fiber of him twitched: flinging the sacks to the ground so that the deacon on the bottom groaned with pain and the headman hiccuped with his whole gullet, he trudged on, the small sack on his shoulder, with the crowd of lads that was following the crowd of girls in which he thought he had heard Oksana's voice.
"Yes, it's she! standing like a tsaritsa, her black eyes shining! A handsome lad is telling her something; it must be funny, because she's laughing. But she's always laughing." As if inadvertently, himself not knowing how, the blacksmith pushed through the crowd and stood next to her.
"Ah, Vakula, you're here! Good evening!" said the beauty with the very smile that all but drove Vakula out of his mind. "Well, did vou get a lot for your caroling? Eh, such a little sack! And the booties that the tsaritsa wears, did you get them? Get me the booties and I'll marry you!" She laughed and ran off with the crowd.
The blacksmith stood as if rooted to the spot. "No, I can't; it's more than I can bear…" he said at last. "But, my God, why is she so devilishly pretty? Her eyes, and her speech, and everything-it just burns me, burns me… No, I can't stand it anymore! It's time to put an end to it alclass="underline" perish my soul, I'll go and drown myself in a hole in the ice and pass out of the picture!"
Here, with a resolute step, he went on, caught up with the crowd, came abreast of Oksana, and said in a firm voice:
"Farewell, Oksana! Seek whatever suitor you like, fool whomever you like; but you won't see any more of me in this world."
The beauty looked surprised, wanted to say something, but the blacksmith waved his hand and ran away.
"Where to, Vakula?" called the lads, seeing the blacksmith running.
"Farewell, brothers!" the blacksmith called out in reply. "God willing, we'll see each other in the next world; but we're not to carouse together anymore in this one. Farewell, don't remember any evil of me! Tell Father Kondrat to serve a panikhida 4 for my sinful soul. I didn't paint the candles for the icons of Saint Nicholas and the Mother of God, it's my fault, I got busy with worldly things. Whatever goods you find in my chest, they all go to the church! Farewell!"