Katerina fell to thinking.
"Even if I were to open the door, I cannot remove your chains."
"I fear no chains," he said. "You say they have chained my arms and legs? No, I blew smoke in their eyes and held out dry wood to them instead of my arm. Here I am, look, there's not a chain on me now!" he said, stepping into the middle. "I would not fear these walls either and would pass through them, but your husband himself does not know what sort of walls they are. A holy monk built them, and no unclean power can take a prisoner out of here without unlocking it with the same key the saint used to lock his cell. I'll dig the same sort of cell for myself, when I, an unheard-of sinner, am released from here."
"Listen, I'll let you out. But what if you deceive me," said Katerina, stopping outside the door, "and instead of repenting, again become the devil's brother?"
"No, Katerina, I have not long to live now. My end is near, even without execution. Do you think I would give myself up to eternal torment?"
The locks clanged.
"Farewell! May the merciful God preserve you, my child!" said the sorcerer, kissing her.
"Do not touch me, unheard-of sinner, go quickly!…" said Katerina. But he was no longer there.
"I let him out!" she said, frightened and gazing wildly at the walls. "What will I tell my husband now? I'm lost. All that's left for me is to bury myself alive in the grave!" And, sobbing, she nearly fell onto the stump where the prisoner had been sitting. "Yet I saved a soul," she said softly. "I did a deed pleasing to God. But my husband… It's the first time I've deceived him. Oh, how terrible, how hard it will be to tell him a lie. Someone's coming! It's him! my husband!" she cried desperately and fell to the ground, unconscious.
VII
"It's me, my daughter! It's me, my dear heart!" Katerina heard, coming to her senses, and saw before her the old serving woman. The woman, bending down, seemed to whisper something, stretching her withered hand over her and sprinkling her with cold water.
"Where am I?" Katerina said, getting up and looking around. "Before me the Dnieper rushes, behind me the hills… where have you brought me to, woman?"
"Not brought you to, but brought you from, carried you out in my arms from the stuffy cellar. I locked it with the key, so that you don't get in trouble with Master Danilo."
"Where is the key?" said Katerina, glancing at her belt. "I don't see it."
"Your husband untied it so as to go and look at the sorcerer, my child."
"To go and look?… Woman, I'm lost!" cried Katerina.
"May God preserve us from that, my child! Only keep silent, my little mistress, and no one will find out anything!"
"He's escaped, the cursed antichrist! Did you hear, Katerina? He's escaped!" said Master Danilo, coming up to his wife. His eyes flashed fire; his saber, clanking, shook at his side.
His wife went dead.
"Did someone let him out, my beloved husband?" she said, trembling.
"Someone did, you're right; but that someone was the devil. Look, there's a log bound in the irons instead of him. God has made it so that the devil doesn't fear Cossack hands! If any one of my Cossacks had so much as the thought in his head, and I learned of it… I wouldn't be able to find a punishment fit for him!"
"And if it was me?…" Katerina said involuntarily and stopped, frightened.
"If it was you who thought of it, then you wouldn't be my wife. I'd sew you up in a sack and drown you in the very middle of the Dnieper!…"
Katerina's breath was taken away, and she fancied her hair was separating from her head.
VIII On the border road, in a tavern, Polacks have been gathering and feasting for two days. There are not a few of the scum. They must have come for some raid: some of them have muskets; spurs jingle, sabers rattle. The nobles make merry and boast, talking about their unheard-of deeds, mocking Orthodoxy, calling the Ukrainian people their slaves, twisting their mustaches imposingly and imposingly sprawling on the benches with their heads thrown back. They have a ksiadz with them. Only, the ksiadz is of the same ilk and does not even look like a Christian priest: he drinks and carouses with them and says shameful things with his infidel tongue. The servants do not yield to them in anything: the sleeves of their tattered jackets shoved back, they strut about as if they are something special. They play cards and slap each other on the nose with the cards. They have got other men's wives to come with them. Shouting, fighting!… The nobles are rowdy, they pull tricks: grab the Jew by his beard, paint a cross on his infidel brow; shoot blanks at their wenches and dance the Cracovienne with their infidel priest. Never has there been such temptation in the Russian land, not even from the Tartars. It must be that God destined her to suffer this disgrace for her sins! Amidst the general bedlam you can hear them talking about Master Danilo's farmstead beyond the Dnieper, about his beautiful wife… Not for anything good has this band gathered!
IX
Master Danilo is sitting at the table in his room, leaning on his elbow and thinking. Mistress Katerina is sitting on the stove seat, singing a song.
"I feel somehow sad, my wife!" said Master Danilo. "There's an ache in my head and an ache in my heart. Something is weighing me down. It must be that my death is straying somewhere nearby."
"Oh, my beloved husband!" thought Katerina, "lean your head on me! Why are you nursing such black thoughts in yourself?" But she did not dare to say it. Bitter it was for her, the guilty one, to accept her husband's caresses.
"Listen, my wife!" said Danilo, "do not abandon our son when I am no more. You'll get no happiness from God if you abandon him, either in this world or in the next. Hard will it be for my bones to rot in the damp earth; but harder still will it be for my soul."
"What are you saying, my husband! Did you not mock us weak women? And now you talk like a weak woman yourself. You must live for a long time yet."
"No, Katerina, my soul senses that death is near. It's growing sad in the world. Evil times are coming. Ah, I remember, I remember the years; they certainly will not come back! He was still alive, the honor and glory of our army, old Konashevich! 10 The Cossack regiments pass as if before my eyes now! It was a golden time, Katerina! The hetman sat on a black steed. A mace gleamed in his hand; around him his hired troops; on both sides stirred a red sea of Zaporozhtsy. The hetman started to speak-all stood as if rooted. The old fellow wept as he began to recall for us the deeds and bat-des of old. Ah, if you knew, Katerina, what slaughter we did then on the Turks! You can still see the scar on my head. Four bullets went through me in four places. Not one of the wounds has healed completely. How much gold we brought home then! Cossacks scooped up precious stones with their hats. What steeds, if you knew, Katerina, what steeds we drove away with us! Ah, I'll never fight like that again! It seems I'm not old yet, and my body is hale; yet the Cossack sword drops from my hand, I live with nothing to do and don't know myself what I live for. There's no order in the Ukraine: colonels and captains bicker among themselves like dogs. There's no chief over them all. Our nobility have changed everything according to Polish custom, they've adopted their slyness… sold their souls by accepting the Unia. Jewry oppresses the poor people. Oh, time, time! past time! where have you gone, my years?… Go to the cellar, lad, and fetch me a crock of mead! I'll drink for the old life and the years gone by!"
"How shall we receive our guests, Master? Polacks are coming from the meadow side!" said Stetsko, entering the house.
"I know what they're coming for," said Danilo, getting up from his seat. "Saddle your horses, my trusty servants! harness up! draw your sabers! don't forget to bring some lead buckwheat! We must receive our guests with honor!"