The cross on one tomb swayed and out of it quietly rose a withered dead man. Beard down to his waist; claws on his fingers, long, longer than the fingers themselves. Quietly he raised his arms. His whole face twisted and trembled. He obviously suffered terrible torment. "I can't breathe! I can't breathe!" he moaned in a wild, inhuman voice. Like a knife blade his voice scraped at the heart, and the dead man suddenly sank under the ground. Another cross swayed, and again a dead man came out, still taller, still more terrible than the first; all overgrown, beard down to his knees, and still longer, bony nails. Still more wildly he cried: "I can't breathe!" and sank under the ground. A third cross swayed, a third dead man rose. It seemed as if nothing but bones rose high over the ground. Beard down to his very heels; fingers with long claws stuck into the ground. Terribly he stretched his arms upwards, as if trying to reach the moon, and cried out as if someone were sawing at his yellow bones…
The baby asleep in Katerina's arms gave a cry and woke up. The mistress herself gave a cry. The oarsmen dropped their hats into the Dnieper. The master himself shook.
Suddenly it all disappeared as if it had never been; nevertheless, the lads did not take up their oars for a long time.
Anxiously did Burulbash look at his young wife, who fearfully rocked the crying baby in her arms; he pressed her to his heart and kissed her on the brow.
"Don't be afraid, Katerina! Look, there's nothing!" he said, pointing all around. "It's the sorcerer trying to frighten people, so that no one gets into his unclean nest. He'll only frighten women with that! Give my son here!" With these words, Master Danilo raised his son to his lips. "What, Ivan, you're not afraid of sorcerers? No, papa, he says, I'm a Cossack. Enough, then, stop crying! We'll go home! we'll go home-mother will feed you porridge, put you to bed in your cradle, and sing:
Lullay, lullay, lullay,
Lullay, little son, lullay,
Grow up, grow up wise,
Win glory in the Cossacks' eyes
And punish their enemies.
Listen, Katerina, it seems to me your father doesn't want to live in accord with us. He arrived sullen, stern, as if he's angry… Well, if you're displeased, then why come? He didn't want to drink to Cossack freedom, he didn't rock the baby in his arms! First I wanted to confide everything in my heart to him, but it didn't come out, and my speech stumbled. No, his is not a Cossack's heart! Cossack hearts, when they meet, never fail to go out to each other! What, my sweet lads, it's soon the shore? Well, I'll give you new hats. To you, Stetsko, I'll give a velvet one with gold. I took it from a Tartar, along with his head. I got all his gear; only his soul I let go free. Well, tie up! Here, Ivan, we've come home and you keep on crying! Take him, Katerina!"
They all got out. A thatched roof showed from behind the hilclass="underline" the ancestral mansion of Master Danilo. Beyond it another hill, then a field, and then you could walk for a hundred miles and not find even one Cossack.
III
Master Danilo's farmstead lies between two hills, in a narrow valley that runs down to the Dnieper. His mansion is not talclass="underline" a cottage by the looks, like those of simple Cossacks, and only one room in it; but there is enough space inside for him, and his wife, and the old serving woman, and ten choice youths. There are oak shelves up on the walls all around. They are laden with bowls and pots for eating. There are silver goblets among them and glasses trimmed with gold-gifts or the plunder of war. Below them hang costly muskets, sabers, harquebuses, lances. Willingly or unwillingly they were passed on from Tartars, Turks, and Polacks; and so they are not a little nicked. Looking at them, Master Danilo recalled his battles as if by banners. Along the wall, smoothly hewn oak benches. Next to them, before the stove seat, 4 a cradle hangs on ropes put through a ring screwed into the ceiling. The floor of the room is beaten smooth and covered with clay. On the benches Master Danilo sleeps with his wife. On the stove seat sleeps the old serving woman. In the cradle the little baby sports and is lulled to sleep. On the floor the youths lie side by side. But it is better for a Cossack to sleep on the level ground under the open sky; he needs no down or feather beds; he puts fresh hay under his head and sprawls freely on the grass. It delights him to wake up in the middle of the night, to gaze at the tall, star-strewn sky and shiver from the cool of the night that refreshes his Cossack bones. Stretching and murmuring in his sleep, he lights his pipe and wraps himself tighter in his warm sheepskin.
It was not early that Burulbash woke up after the previous day's merrymaking, and when he did wake up, he sat in the corner on the bench and began to sharpen a new Turkish saber he had taken in trade; and Mistress Katerina started to embroider a silken towel with gold. Suddenly Katerina's father came in, angry, scowling, with an outlandish pipe in his teeth, approached his daughter, and began to question her sternly: What was the reason for her coming home so late?
"About such things, father-in-law, you should ask me, not her! The husband is answerable, not the wife. That's how it is with us, meaning no offense to you!" said Danilo, without quitting his occupation. "Maybe there, in infidel lands, it's different-I wouldn't know."
Color came to the father-in-law's stern face, and his eyes glinted savagely.
"Who, if not a father, is to look after his daughter!" he muttered to himself. "I ask you, then: Where were you dragging about till late in the night?"
"Now you're talking, dear father-in-law! To that I will tell you that I'm long past the age of being swaddled by women. I can seat a horse. I can wield a sharp saber with my hand. I can do a thing or two besides… I can answer to no one for what I do."
"I see, Danilo, I know, you want a quarrel! Whoever hides himself must have evil things on his mind."
"Think what you like," said Danilo, "and I'll think, too. Thank God, I've never yet been part of any dishonorable thing; I've always stood for the Orthodox faith and the fatherland-not like some vagabonds who drag about God knows where while Orthodox people are fighting to the death, and then come down to reap where they haven't sown. They're not even like the Uniates 5: they never peek inside a church of God. It's they who should be questioned properly about where they drag about."
"Eh, Cossack! you know… I'm a bad shot: from a mere two hundred yards my bullet pierces the heart. I'm an unenviable swordsman: what I leave of a man is smaller than the grains they cook for porridge."
"I'm ready," said Master Danilo, briskly passing his saber through the air, as though he knew what he had been sharpening it for.
"Danilo!" Katerina cried loudly, seizing his arm and clinging to it. "Bethink yourself, madman! Look who you are raising your hand against! Father, your hair is white as snow, yet you flare up like a senseless boy!"
"Wife!" Master Danilo cried menacingly, "you know I don't like that. Mind your woman's business!"
The sabers clanged terribly; iron cut against iron, and sparks poured down like dust over the Cossacks. Weeping, Katerina went to her own room, threw herself down on the bed, and stopped her ears so as not to hear the saber blows. But the Cossacks did not fight so poorly that she could stifle the blows. Her heart was about to burst asunder. She felt the sound go through her whole body: clang, clang. "No, I can't bear it, I can't bear it… Maybe the red blood already spurts from his white body. Maybe my dear one is weakening now-and I lie here!" All pale, scarcely breathing, she went out to the room.
Steadily and terribly the Cossacks fought. Neither one could overpower the other. Now Katerina s father attacks-Master Danilo retreats. Master Danilo attacks-the stern father retreats, and again they are even. The pitch of battle. They swing… ough! the sabers clang… and the blades fly clattering aside.
"God be thanked!" said Katerina, but she cried out again when she saw the Cossacks take hold of muskets. They checked the flints, cocked the hammers.