Master Danilo shot-and missed. The father aimed… He is old, his sight is not so keen as the young man's, yet his hand does not tremble. A shot rang out… Master Danilo staggered. Red blood stained the left sleeve of his Cossack jacket.
"No!" he cried, "I won't sell myself so cheaply. Not the left arm but the right is the chief. I have a Turkish pistol hanging on the wall; never once in my life has it betrayed me. Come down from the wall, old friend! do me service!" Danilo reached out.
"Danilo!" Katerina cried in despair, seizing his hands and throwing herself at his feet. "I do not plead for myself. There is only one end for me: unworthy is the wife who lives on after her husband. The Dnieper, the cold Dnieper will be my grave… But look at your son, Danilo, look at your son! Who will shelter the poor child? Who will care for him? Who will teach him to fly on a black steed, to fight for freedom and the faith, to drink and carouse like a Cossack? Perish, my son, perish! Your father does not want to know you! Look how he turns his face away. Oh! I know you now! you're a beast, not a man! you have the heart of a wolf and the soul of a sly vermin. I thought you had a drop of pity in you, that human feeling burned in your stony body. Madly was I mistaken. It will bring you joy. Your bones will dance for joy in your coffin when they hear the impious Polack beasts throw your son into the flames, when your son screams under knives and scalding water. Oh, I know you! You will be glad to rise from your coffin and fan the fire raging under him with your hat!"
"Enough, Katerina! Come, my beloved Ivan, I will kiss you! No, my child, no one will touch even one hair on your head. You will grow up to be the glory of your fatherland; like the wind you will fly in the forefront of the Cossacks, a velvet hat on your head, a sharp saber in your hand. Father, give me your hand! Let us forget what has happened between us. Whatever wrong I did you, the fault was mine. Why won't you give me your hand?" Danilo said to Katerina's father, who stood in one spot, his face expressing neither anger nor reconciliation.
"Father!" Katerina cried out, embracing and kissing him. "Do not be implacable. Forgive Danilo: he will not upset you anymore!"
"For your sake only do I forgive him, my daughter!" he said, kissing her, with a strange glint in his eyes. Katerina gave a slight start: the kiss seemed odd to her, as did the strange glint in his eyes. She leaned her elbow on the table, at which Master Danilo sat bandaging his wounded arm and thinking now that it was wrong and not like a Cossack to ask forgiveness when one was not guilty of anything.
IV There was a glimmer of daylight but no sun: the sky was louring and a fine rain sprinkled the fields, the forests, the wide Dnieper. Mistress Katerina woke up, but not joyfully: tears in her eyes, and all of her confused and troubled.
"My beloved husband, dear husband, I had a strange dream!"
"What dream, my sweet mistress Katerina?"
"I dreamed-it was truly strange, and so alive, as if I was awake-I dreamed that my father is that same monster we saw at the captain's. But I beg you, don't believe in dreams. One can see all sorts of foolishness! It was as if I was standing before him, trembling all over, frightened, and every word he said made all my fibers groan. If only you had heard what he said…"
"What was it he said, my golden Katerina?"
"He said, 'Look at me, Katerina, I am handsome! People should not say I am ugly. I will make you a fine husband. See what a look is in my eyes!' Here he aimed his fiery eyes at me, I gave a cry and woke up."
"Yes, dreams tell much truth. However, do you know that things are not so quiet behind the hill? It seems the Polacks have begun to show up again. Gorobets has sent to tell me not to be caught napping. He needn't worry, though; I'm not napping as it is. My lads cut down twelve big trees for barricades last night. The Pospolitstvo 6 will be treated to lead plums, and the gentlemen will dance under our knouts."
"Does my father know about it?"
"Your father is a weight on my neck! I still can't figure him out. He must have committed many sins in foreign lands. What, indeed, can be the reason? He's lived here for nearly a month and has never once made merry like a good Cossack! He refused to drink mead! do you hear, Katerina, he refused to drink the mead I shook out of the Jews in Brest. Hey, lad!" cried Master Danilo. "Run to the cellar, my boy, and fetch me some Jewish mead!… He doesn't even drink vodka! Confound it! I don't think, Mistress Katerina, that he believes in Christ the Lord either! Eh? What do you think?"
"God knows what you're saying, Master Danilo!"
"It's strange, Mistress!" he went on, taking the clay mug from the Cossack. "Even the foul Catholics fall for vodka; only the Turks don't drink. Well, Stetsko, did you have a good sup of mead in the cellar?"
"Just a taste, Master!"
"Lies, you son of a bitch! look at the flies going for your mustache! I can see by your eyes that you downed half a bucket! Eh,
Cossacks! such wicked folk! ready for anything for a comrade, but he'll take care of the liquor all by himself. I haven't been drunk for a long time-eh, Mistress Katerina?"
"Long, you say! And the last time…"
"Don't worry, don't worry, I won't drink more than a mug! And here comes a Turkish abbot squeezing in the door!" he said through his teeth, seeing his father-in-law stooping to enter.
"What is this, my daughter!" the father said, taking off his hat and straightening his belt, from which hung a saber studded with wondrous stones. "The sun is already high, and you have no dinner ready."
"Dinner is ready, my father, we will serve it now! Get out the pot with the dumplings!" said Mistress Katerina to the old serving woman who was wiping the wooden bowls. "Wait, I'd better take it out myself," Katerina went on, "and you call the lads."
Everyone sat on the floor in a circle: the father facing the icon corner, Master Danilo to the left, Mistress Katerina to the right, and the ten trusty youths in blue and yellow jackets.
"I don't like these dumplings!" said the father, having eaten a little and putting down the spoon. "They have no taste!"
"I know," Master Danilo thought to himself, "you prefer Jewish noodles."
"Why, my father-in-law," he went on aloud, "do you say the dumplings have no taste? Are they poorly prepared? My Katerina makes such dumplings as even a hetman 7 rarely gets to eat. There's no need to be squeamish about them. It's Christian food! All God's saints and holy people ate dumplings."
Not a word from the father. Master Danilo also fell silent.
A roast boar with cabbage and plums was served.
"I don't like pork," said Katerina's father, raking up the cabbage with his spoon.
"Why would you not like pork?" said Danilo. "Only Turks and Jews don't like pork."
The father frowned even more sternly.
Milk gruel was all the old father ate, and instead of vodka he sipped some black water from a flask he kept in his bosom.
After dinner, Danilo fell into a mighty hero's sleep and woke up only toward evening. He sat down and began writing letters to the Cossack army; and Mistress Katerina, sitting on the stove seat, rocked the cradle with her foot. Master Danilo sits and looks with his left eye at his writing and with his right eye out the window. And from the window the gleam of the distant hills and the Dnieper can be seen. Beyond the Dnieper, mountains show blue. Up above sparkles the now clear night sky. But it is not the distant sky or the blue forest that Master Danilo admires: he gazes at the jutting spit of land on which the old castle blackens. He fancied that light flashed in a narrow window of the castle. But all is quiet. He must have imagined it. Only the muted rush of the Dnieper can be heard below, and on three sides, one after the other, the echo of momentarily awakened waves. The river is not mutinous. He grumbles and murmurs like an old man: nothing pleases him; everything has changed around him; he is quietly at war with the hills, forests, and meadows on his banks, and carries his complaint against them to the Black Sea.