In this farmstead a man often appeared, or, better, a devil in human form. Where he came from and why he came, nobody knew. He'd carouse, drink, then suddenly vanish into thin air, without a trace. Then, lo and behold, again he'd as if fall from the sky, prowl the streets of the hamlet, of which there's no trace left now and which was maybe no more than a hundred paces from
Dikanka. He'd pick up passing Cossacks: laughter, songs, money flowed, vodka poured like water… He used to accost pretty girls: gave them ribbons, earrings, necklaces-more than they knew what to do with! True, the pretty girls would hesitate a bit as they took the presents: God knows, maybe they really had passed through unclean hands. My grandfather's own aunt, who kept a tavern at the time on what is now Oposhnyanskaya Road, where Basavriuk-so this demonic man was known-used to carouse, she it was who said she wouldn't agree to take presents from him, not for all the blessings in the world. But, again, how not take: anybody would have been filled with fear when he knitted his bristling eyebrows and sent such a scowling look at you that you'd gladly let your legs carry you God knows where; and once you did take it-the very next night some friendly visitor from the swamp, with horns on his head, drags himself to you and starts strangling you, if you've got a necklace on your neck, or biting your finger, if you're wearing a ring, or pulling your braid, if you've braided a ribbon into it. God be with them, these presents! But the trouble is that you can't get rid of them: throw the devilish ring or necklace into the water, and it comes floating right back to your hands.
There was a church in the hamlet, of St. Panteleimon if I remember rightly. A priest lived by it then, Father Afanasy, of blessed memory. Noticing that Basavriuk did not come to church even on Easter Sunday, he decided to reprimand him and put him under a church penance. Penance, hah! He barely escaped. "Listen, my good sir!" the man thundered in reply, "you'd better mind your own business and not go meddling in other people s, unless you'd like to have that goat's gullet of yours plugged with hot kutya!" 5 What could be done with the cursed fellow? Father Afanasy merely announced that anyone who kept company with Basavriuk would be regarded as a Catholic, 6 an enemy of Christ's Church and of the whole human race.
In that hamlet one Cossack called Korzh had a man working for him who was known as Pyotr Kinless-maybe because nobody remembered either his father or his mother. The church warden, it's true, said they'd died of the plague the next year; but my grandfather's aunt wouldn't hear of it and tried the best she could to endow him with kin, though poor Pyotr needed that as much as we need last year's snow. She said his father was still in the Zaporozhye, 7 had been in captivity to the Turks, had suffered God knows what tortures, and by some miracle, after disguising himself as a eunuch, had given them the slip. The dark-browed girls and young women cared little about his kin. They merely said that if he was dressed in a new coat tied with a red belt, had a black astrakhan hat with a smart blue top put on his head, had a Turkish saber hung at his side, was given a horsewhip for one hand and a finely chased pipe for the other, not a lad in the world could hold a candle to him. But the trouble was that poor Petrus had only one gray blouse, with more holes in it than there are gold coins in a Jew's pocket. And that still wasn't so great a trouble, the real trouble was that old Korzh had a daughter, a beauty such as I think you've hardly chanced to see. My late grandfather's aunt used to say-and you know it's easier for a woman to kiss the devil, meaning no offense, than to call another woman a beauty-that the Cossack girl's plump cheeks were as fresh and bright as the first pink poppy when, having washed itself in God's dew, it glows, spreads its petals, and preens itself before the just-risen sun; that her eyebrows were like the black cords our girls now buy to hang crosses and ducats on from the Muscovites who go peddling with their boxes in our villages, arched evenly as if looking into her bright eyes; that her little mouth, at the sight of which the young men back then licked their lips, seemed to have been created for chanting nightingale songs; that her hair, black as the raven's wing and soft as young flax (at that time our girls did not yet wear braids with bright-colored ribbons twined in them), fell in curly locks on her gold-embroidered jacket. Ah, may God never grant me to sing "Alleluia" in the choir again if I wouldn't be kissing her here and now, even though the gray is creeping into the old forest that covers my head, and my old woman's by my side like a wart on a nose. Well, if a lad and a girl live near each other… you know yourself what comes of it. It used to be that at the break of dawn, the traces of iron-shod red boots could be seen at the spot where Pidorka had stood gabbling with her Petrus. But even so, nothing bad would ever have entered Korzh's mind, if Petrus hadn't decided one time-well, it's obvious none but the evil one prompted him-without taking a good look around the front hall, to plant a hearty kiss, as they say, on the Cossack girl's rosy lips, and the same evil one-may the son-of-a-bitch dream of the Holy Cross!- foolishly put the old coot up to opening the door. Korzh turned to wood, gaping and clinging to the doorpost. The cursed kiss seemed to stun him completely. It sounded louder to him than the blow of a pestle against the wall, something our peasants usually do to drive the clootie away, for lack of a gun and powder.
Having recovered, he took his grandfather's horsewhip from the wall and was about to sprinkle poor Pyotr's back with it, when Pidorka's brother, the six-year-old Ivas, came running from nowhere, grabbed his legs with his little arms in fear, and shouted, "Daddy, daddy! don't beat Petrus!" What could he do? A father's heart isn't made of stone: he put the horsewhip back on the wall and led him quietly out of the cottage: "If you ever show up in my cottage again, or even just under the windows, then listen, Pyotr: by God, that'll be the end of your black moustache, and your topknot 8 as well; here it is going twice around your ear, but it'll bid farewell to your head or I'm not Terenty Korzh!" Having said that, he gave him a slight cuff, so that Petrus, not seeing the ground under him, went flying headlong. There's kisses for you! Our two doves were grief-stricken; and then a rumor spread through the village that some Polack had taken to calling on Korzh, all trimmed in gold, with a moustache, with a saber, with spurs, with pockets that jingled like the little bell on the bag our sacristan Taras goes around the church with every day. Well, we know why someone comes calling on a father who has a dark-browed daughter. So one day Pidorka, streaming with tears, picked up her Ivas in her arms: "Ivas my dear, Ivas my love! run to Petrus, my golden child, quick as an arrow shot from a bow; tell him everything: I would love his brown eyes, I would kiss his white face, but my lot forbids me. More than one napkin is wet with my bitter tears. It's hard on me. I'm sick at heart. And my own father is my enemy: he's forcing me to marry the unloved Polack. Tell him the wedding is being prepared, only there won't be any music at our wedding: deacons will sing instead of pipes and mandolins. I won't step out to dance with my bridegroom: they will bear me away. Dark, dark will be my house: of maple wood it will be, and instead of a chimney there will be a cross on its roof!"
As if turned to stone, not moving from the spot, Petro listened while the innocent child babbled Pidorka's words to him. "And I thought, luckless me, that I'd go to the Crimea and Turkey to war myself up some gold, and then come to you with wealth, my beauty. That's not to be. An evil eye has looked on us. There'll be a wedding for me, too, my dear little fish: only there won't be any deacons at that wedding; a black raven will crow over me instead of a priest; a smooth field will be my home and a gray cloud my roof; an eagle will peck my brown eyes out; the rains will wash the Cossack's bones, and the wind will dry them. But what am I doing? of whom, to whom shall I complain? God must will it so- if I perish, I perish!" and he plodded straight to the tavern.