Khoma's head cleared of the last trace of drunkenness. He just kept crossing himself and reading prayers at random. And at the same time he heard the unclean powers flitting about him, all but brushing him with the tips of their wings and repulsive tails. He did not have the courage to look at them closely; he only saw the whole wall occupied by a huge monster standing amidst its own tangled hair as in a forest; through the web of hair two eyes stared horribly, the eyebrows raised slightly. Above it in the air there was something like an immense bubble, with a thousand tongs and scorpion stings reaching from its middle. Black earth hung on them in lumps. They all looked at him, searching, unable to see him, surrounded by the mysterious circle.
"Bring Viy! Go get Viy!" the words of the dead body rang out.
And suddenly there was silence in the church; the wolves' howling could be heard far away, and soon heavy footsteps rang out in the church; with a sidelong glance he saw them leading in some squat, hefty, splay-footed man. He was black earth all over. His earth-covered legs and arms stuck out like strong, sinewy roots. Heavily he trod, stumbling all the time. His long eyelids were lowered to the ground. With horror Khoma noticed that the face on him was made of iron. He was brought in under the arms and put right by the place where Khoma stood.
"Lift my eyelids, I can't see!" Viy said in a subterranean voice- and the entire host rushed to lift his eyelids.
"Don't look!" some inner voice whispered to the philosopher. He could not help himself and looked.
"There he is!" Viy cried and fixed an iron finger on him. And all that were there fell upon the philosopher. Breathless, he crashed to the ground and straightaway the spirit flew out of him in terror.
A cockcrow rang out. This was already the second cockcrow; the gnomes had missed the first. The frightened spirits rushed pell-mell for the windows and doors in order to fly out quickly, but nothing doing: and so they stayed there, stuck in the doors and windows. When the priest came in, he stopped at the sight of such disgrace in God's sanctuary and did not dare serve a panikhida 9 in such a place. So the church remained forever with monsters stuck in its doors and windows, overgrown with forest, roots, weeds, wild blackthorn; and no one now can find the path to it.
When rumors of this reached Kiev and the theologian Khalyava heard, finally, that such had been the lot of the philosopher Khoma, he fell to thinking for a whole hour. In the meantime great changes had happened with him. Fortune had smiled on him: upon completing his studies, he had been made bell-ringer of the tallest belfry, and he almost always went about with a bloody nose, because the wooden stairs of the belfry had been put together every which way.
"Have you heard what happened with Khoma?" Tiberiy Goro- bets, by then a philosopher and sporting a fresh mustache, said, coming up to him.
"It's what God granted him," said the ringer Khalyava. "Let's go to the tavern and commemorate his soul!"
The young philosopher, who had come into his rights with the passion of an enthusiast, so that his trousers and frock coat and even his hat gave off a whiff of spirits and coarse tobacco, instantly expressed his readiness.
"Khoma was a nice man!" said the ringer, as the lame tavern keeper set the third mug down in front of him. "A fine man! And he perished for nothing!"
"No, I know why he perished: because he got scared. If he hadn't been scared, the witch couldn't have done anything to him. You just have to cross yourself and spit right on her tail, and nothing will happen. I know all about it. Here in Kiev, the women sitting in the marketplace are all witches."
To this the ringer nodded as a sign of agreement. But, noticing that his tongue was unable to articulate a single word, he carefully got up from the table and, swaying from side to side, went off to hide himself in the remotest part of the weeds. Withal not forgetting, out of long habit, to steal an old boot sole that was lying on a bench.
The Story of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich
Chapter I
Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Nikiforovich
A fine bekesha 1 Ivan Ivanovich has! A most excellent one! And what fleece! Pah, damnation, what fleece! dove gray and frosty! I'll bet you anything that nobody has the like! Look at it, for God's sake-especially if he starts talking with somebody-look from the side: it's simply delicious! There's no describing it: velvet! silver! fire! Lord God! Saint Nicholas the holy wonder-worker! why don't I have a bekesha like that! He had it made for him back before Agafya Fedoseevna went to Kiev. Do you know Agafya Fedoseevna? The one who bit off the assessor's ear?
A wonderful man, Ivan Ivanovich! What a house he's got in Mirgorod! A gallery on oak posts all the way round it, with benches along it everywhere. When it gets too hot, Ivan Ivanovich throws off the bekesha and his underclothes, and relaxes on the gallery in just his shirt, watching what goes on in the yard and street. What apples and pears he's got right under his windows! Just open the window-the branches burst into the room. That's all in front of the house; but you should see what he's got in his gar- den! What hasn't he got in it! Plums, cherries, black cherries, all kinds of vegetables, sunflowers, cucumbers, melons, beans-even a threshing floor and a smithy.
A wonderful man, Ivan Ivanovich! He has a great love of melons. They're his favorite food. As soon as he finishes dinner and goes out to the gallery in nothing but his shirt, he immediately tells Gapka to bring two melons. Then he cuts them up himself, collects the seeds in a special piece of paper, and begins to eat. Then he tells Gapka to bring the inkpot and himself, with his own hand, writes on the paper with the seeds: "This melon was eaten on such-and-such date." If there was some guest at the time, then: "with the participation of so-and-so."
The late judge of Mirgorod always looked at Ivan Ivanovich's house with admiration. Yes, it's not a bad little house at all. I like the way rooms and hallways have been added on to it, so that if you look at it from afar you see only roofs sitting one on top of the other, looking very much like a plateful of pancakes, or, better still, like the kind of fungus that grows on trees. Anyhow, the roofs are all thatched with rushes; a willow, an oak, and two apple trees lean on them with their spreading branches. Small windows with whitewashed openwork shutters flash between the trees and even run out to the street.
A wonderful man, Ivan Ivanovich! The Poltava commissary also knows him! Dorosh Tarasovich Pukhivochka, whenever he comes from Khorol, always stops to see him. And the archpriest, Father Pyotr, who lives in Koliberda, whenever he has a half-dozen guests gathered, always says he knows of no one who fulfills his Christian duty or knows how to live so well as Ivan Ivanovich.
God, how time flies! By then ten years had gone by since he was left a widower. He had no children. Gapka has children and they often run about in the yard. Ivan Ivanovich always gives each of them a bagel, or a slice of melon, or a pear. Gapka carries the keys to his storerooms and cellars; the keys to the big trunk in his bedroom and the middle storeroom Ivan Ivanovich keeps himself, and he doesn't like to let anyone into them. Gapka, a healthy girl, goes about in an apron and has fresh calves and cheeks.
And what a pious man Ivan Ivanovich is! Every Sunday he puts on his bekesha and goes to church. On entering, Ivan Ivanovich, after bowing in all directions, usually installs himself in the choir and sings along very well in a bass voice. And when the service is over, Ivan Ivanovich simply can't refrain from going up to every beggar. He might not want to occupy himself with something so boring if he weren't prompted to it by his natural kindness.