After saying which, the blacksmith went off at a run with the sack on his back.
"He's cracked in the head!" said the lads.
"A lost soul!" an old woman passing by mumbled piously. "I'll go and tell them the blacksmith has hanged himself!"
Meanwhile Vakula, having run through several streets, stopped to catch his breath. "Where am I running, in fact?" he thought, "as if all is lost. I'll try one more way: I'll go to Paunchy Patsiuk, the Zaporozhets. 5 They say he knows all the devils and can do whatever he likes. I'll go, my soul will perish anyway!"
At that the devil, who had lain for a long time without moving, leaped for joy inside the sack; but the blacksmith, supposing he'd caused this movement by somehow catching the sack with his arm, punched it with his hefty fist, gave it a toss on his shoulder, and went off to Paunchy Patsiuk.
This Paunchy Patsiuk had indeed been a Zaporozhets once; but whether he had been driven out of the Zaporozhye or had run away on his own, no one knew. He had been living in Dikanka for a long time-ten years, maybe fifteen. At first he had lived like a real Zaporozhets: didn't work, slept three-quarters of the day, ate like six mowers, and drank nearly a whole bucket at one gulp; there was room enough for it all, however, because Patsiuk, though short, was of quite stout girth. Besides, the balloon trousers he wore were so wide that, however long a stride he took, his legs were completely invisible, and it looked as though a wine barrel was moving down the street. Maybe that was why they nicknamed him "Paunchy." A few days after his arrival in the village, everybody already knew he was a wizard. If anyone was sick with something, he at once called in Patsiuk; and Patsiuk had only to whisper a few words and it was as if the illness was taken away. If it happened that a hungry squire got a fish bone caught in his throat, Patsiuk could hit him in the back with his fist so skillfully that the bone would go where it belonged without causing any harm to the squire's throat. Of late he had rarely been seen anywhere. The reason for that was laziness, perhaps, or else the fact that it was becoming more difficult each year for him to get through the door. So people had to go to him themselves if they had need of him.
The blacksmith opened the door, not without timidity, and saw Patsiuk sitting on the floor Turkish fashion before a small barrel with a bowl of noodles standing on it. This bowl was placed, as if on purpose, at the level of his mouth. Without lifting a finger, he bent his head slightly to the bowl and sipped up the liquid, occasionally catching noodles in his teeth.
"No," Vakula thought to himself, "this one's lazier than Choub: he at least eats with a spoon, but this one won't even lift his arm!"
Patsiuk must have been greatly occupied with his noodles, because he seemed not to notice at all the coming of the blacksmith, who, as he stepped across the threshold, gave him a very low bow.
"I've come for your kindness, Patsiuk," Vakula said, bowing again.
Fat Patsiuk raised his head and again began slurping up noodles.
"They say, meaning no offense…" the blacksmith said, pluck- ing up his courage, "I mention it not so as to insult you in any way-that you have some kinship with the devil."
Having uttered these words, Vakula became frightened, thinking he had expressed himself too directly and hadn't softened his strong words enough, and, expecting Patsiuk to seize the barrel with the bowl and send it straight at his head, he stepped aside a little and shielded himself with his sleeve, so that the hot liquid from the noodles wouldn't splash in his face.
But Patsiuk shot him a glance and again began slurping up noodles. The heartened blacksmith ventured to continue.
"I've come to you, Patsiuk, may God grant you all good things in abundance, and bread proportionately!" The blacksmith knew how to put in a fashionable word now and then; he had acquired the knack in Poltava, while he was painting the chief's wooden fence. "My sinful self is bound to perish! nothing in the world helps! Come what may, I must ask for help from the devil himself. Well, Patsiuk?" said the blacksmith, seeing his invariable silence, "what am I to do?"
"If it's the devil you need, then go to the devil!" replied Patsiuk, without raising his eyes and continuing to pack away the noodles.
"That's why I came to you," replied the blacksmith, giving him a low bow. "Apart from you, I don't think anybody in the world knows the way to him."
Not a word from Patsiuk, who was finishing the last of the noodles.
"Do me a kindness, good man, don't refuse!" the blacksmith insisted. "Some pork, or sausage, or buckwheat flour-well, or linen, millet, whatever there may be, if needed… as is customary among good people… we won't be stingy. Tell me at least, let's say, how to find the way to him?"
"He needn't go far who has the devil on his back," Patsiuk pronounced indifferently, without changing his position.
Vakula fixed his eyes on him as if he had the explanation of these words written on his forehead. "What is he saying?" his face inquired wordlessly; and his half-open mouth was ready to swallow the first word like a noodle. But Patsiuk kept silent.
Here Vakula noticed there were no longer either noodles or barrel before the man; instead, two wooden bowls stood on the floor, one filled with dumplings, the other with sour cream. His thoughts and eyes involuntarily turned to these dishes. "Let's see how Patsiuk is going to eat those dumplings," he said to himself. "He surely won't want to lean over and slurp them up like noodles, and it's not the right way-a dumpling has to be dipped in sour cream first."
No sooner had he thought it than Patsiuk opened his mouth wide, looked at the dumplings, and opened his mouth still wider. Just then a dumpling flipped out of the bowl, plopped into the sour cream, turned over on the other side, jumped up, and went straight into Patsiuk's mouth. Patsiuk ate it and again opened his mouth, and in went another dumpling in the same way. He was left only with the work of chewing and swallowing.
"See what a marvel!" thought the blacksmith, opening his mouth in surprise, and noticing straightaway that a dumpling was going into his mouth as well and had already smeared his lips with sour cream. Pushing the dumpling away and wiping his lips, the blacksmith began to reflect on what wonders happen in the world and what clever things a man could attain to by means of the unclean powers, observing at the same time that Patsiuk alone could help him. "I'll bow to him again, and let him explain it to me… Though, what the devil! today is a hungry kutya, 6 and he eats dumplings, non-lenten dumplings! What a fool I am, really, standing here and heaping up sins! Retreat!…" And the pious blacksmith rushed headlong from the cottage.
However, the devil, who had been sitting in the sack and rejoicing in anticipation, couldn't stand to see such a fine prize slip through his fingers. As soon as the blacksmith put the sack down, he jumped out and sat astride his neck.
A chill crept over the blacksmith; frightened and pale, he did not know what to do; he was just about to cross himself… But the devil, leaning his doggy muzzle to his right ear, said:
"It's me, your friend-I'll do anything for a friend and comrade! I'll give you as much money as you like," he squealed into his left ear. "Oksana will be ours today," he whispered, poking his muzzle toward his right ear again.
The blacksmith stood pondering.
"Very well," he said finally, "for that price I'm ready to be yours!"
The devil clasped his hands and began bouncing for joy on the blacksmith's neck. "Now I've got you, blacksmith!" he thought to himself. "Now I'll take revenge on you, my sweet fellow, for all your paintings and tall tales against devils! What will my comrades say now, when they find out that the most pious man in the whole village is in my hands?" Here the devil laughed with joy, thinking how he was going to mock all the tailed race in hell, and how furious, the lame devil would be, reputed the foremost contriver among them.