Now a boat blackened on the wide Dnieper, and again something as if flashed in the castle. Danilo whistled softly, and at his whistle the trusty lad came running.
"Quick, Stetsko, take your sharp saber and your musket and follow me."
"You're going out?" asked Mistress Katerina.
"I'm going out, wife. I must look around everywhere to see if all is well."
"But I'm afraid to stay by myself. I'm so sleepy. What if I have the same dream? I'm not even sure it was a dream-it was so lifelike."
"The old woman will stay with you; and in the front hall and outside Cossacks are sleeping!"
"The old woman is already asleep, and I somehow do not trust the Cossacks. Listen, Master Danilo, lock me in my room and take the key with you. I won't be so afraid then. And let the Cossacks lie outside my door."
"So be it!" said Danilo, wiping the dust from his musket and pouring powder into the pan.
The trusty Stetsko already stood dressed in full Cossack gear.
Danilo put on his astrakhan hat, closed the window, latched the door, locked it, and quietly went out through the yard, between his sleeping Cossacks, into the hills.
The sky was almost completely clear. A fresh wind barely wafted from the Dnieper. If it had not been for the moaning of a gull from far off, all would have been mute. But then there seemed to come a rustling… Burulbash and his trusty servant quietly hid behind the thorn bush that covered a felled tree. Someone in a red jacket, with two pistols and a sword at his side, was going down the hill.
"It's my father-in-law!" said Master Danilo, peering at him from behind the bush. "Where is he going at this hour, and why? Stet-sko! don't gape, watch with all your eyes for which path master father will take." The man in the red jacket went right down to the bank and turned toward the jutting spit of land. "Ah! it's there!" said Master Danilo. "So, Stetsko, he's dragging himself straight to the sorcerer's hole."
"Yes, surely nowhere else, Master Danilo! otherwise we'd see him on the other side. But he disappeared near the castle."
"Wait, let's get out and then follow in his tracks. There must be something to it. No, Katerina, I told you your father was a bad man; he does nothing in the Orthodox way."
Master Danilo and his trusty lad flitted out on the jutting bank. Now they were no longer visible. The forest fastness around the castle hid them. The upper window lit up with a soft light. The Cossacks stand below thinking how to climb inside. No gates or doors are to be seen. There must be a way from the courtyard; but how to get in there! From far off the clank of chains and the running of dogs can be heard.
"Why think for so long!" said Master Danilo, seeing a tall oak tree by the window. "Stay here, lad! I'll climb the oak; from it one can look right in the window."
Here he took off his belt, laid his sword down so that it would not clank, and, seizing the branches, climbed up the tree. The window was still lit. Sitting on a branch just by the window, holding on to the tree with his arm, he looks: there is no candle in the room, yet it is light. Odd signs on the walls. Weapons hung up, all strange, such as are not worn by Turks, or Crimeans, or Polacks, or
Christians, or the gallant Swedish people. Under the ceiling, bats flit back and forth, and their shadows flit over the doors, the walls, the floor. Now the door opens without a creak. Someone comes in wearing a red jacket and goes straight to a table covered with a white cloth. "It's he, it's my father-in-law!" Master Danilo climbed down a little lower and pressed himself closer against the tree.
But the man had no time to see whether anyone was looking in the window or not. He came in gloomy, in low spirits, pulled the cloth from the table-and suddenly a transparent blue light poured softly through the room. Only the unmingled waves of the former pale golden light played and plunged as if in a blue sea, and stretched out like streaks in marble. Here he put a pot on the table and began throwing some herbs into it.
Master Danilo looked and no longer saw him in a red jacket; instead, wide balloon trousers appeared on him, such as Turks wear; pistols in the belt; on his head some wondrous hat all covered with writing neither Russian nor Polish. He looked at his face-the face, too, began to change: the nose grew long and hung over the lips; the mouth instantly stretched to the ears; a tooth stuck out of the mouth, bent to one side, and there stood before him the same sorcerer who had appeared at the captain's wedding. "True was your dream, Katerina!" thought Burulbash.
The sorcerer began walking around the table, the signs on the wall began to change more quickly, and the bats plunged down lower, then up, back and forth. The blue light grew thinner and thinner, and seemed to go out completely. And now the room shone with a faint rosy light. The wondrous light seemed to flow into all corners with a soft tinkling, then suddenly vanished, and it was dark. Only a noise was heard, as if wind were playing at a quiet hour of the evening, whirling over the watery mirror, bending the silver willows still lower to the water. And it seems to Master Danilo that the moon is shining in the room, the stars roam, the dark blue sky flashes dimly, and the cool night air even breathes in his face. And it seems to Master Danilo (here he began feeling his mustache to see if he was asleep) that it is no longer the sky but his own bedroom that he sees: his Tartar and Turkish sabers hang on the walls; around the walls are shelves, and on the shelves dishes and household utensils; on the table, bread and salt; a cradle hanging… but instead of icons, terrible faces look out; on the stove seat… but a thickening mist covered everything and it became dark again. And again with an odd tinkling the whole room lit up with a rosy light, and again the sorcerer stood motionless in his strange turban. The sounds grew stronger and denser, the thin rosy light grew brighter, and something white, like a cloud, hovered in the room; and it seems to Master Danilo that the cloud is not a cloud but a woman standing there; only what is she made of? Is she woven of air? Why is she standing without touching the ground or leaning on anything, and the rosy light shines through her and the signs flash on the wall? Now she moves her transparent head slightly: her pale blue eyes shine faintly; her hair falls in waves over her shoulders like a light gray mist; her lips show pale red, like the barely visible red light of dawn pouring through the transparent white morning sky; her eyebrows are faintly dark… Ah! it's Katerina! Here Danilo felt as if his limbs were bound; he tried to speak, but his lips moved soundlessly.
The sorcerer stood motionless in his place.
"Where have you been?" he asked, and she who stood before him fluttered.
"Oh, why did you summon me?" she moaned softly. "It was so joyful for me. I was in the place where I was born and lived for fifteen years. Oh, how good it is there! How green and fragrant that meadow where I played as a child: the wildflowers are the same, and our cottage, and the kitchen garden! Oh, how my kind mother embraced me! What love was in her eyes! She caressed me, kissed me on my lips and cheeks, combed out my blond braid with a fine-toothed comb… Father!" here she fixed the sorcerer with her pale eyes, "why did you kill my mother?"
The sorcerer shook his finger at her menacingly.
"Did I ask you to speak of that?" And the airy beauty trembled. "Where is your mistress now?"
"My mistress Katerina is asleep now, and I was glad of that, I took off and flew away. I've long wished to see Mother. I was suddenly fifteen. I became all light as a bird. Why have you summoned me?
"Do you remember everything I told you yesterday?" the sorcerer asked, so softly that it was barely audible.
"I remember, I remember; but there's nothing I wouldn't give to forget it! Poor Katerina! There's much she doesn't know of what her soul knows."
"It's Katerina's soul," thought Master Danilo; but he still dared not move.