"St. John's Eve" by Nikolai Gogol

Once one of those gentlemen—it’s hard for us simple folk to fit a name to them: writers, no, not writers, but the same as the dealers at our fairs: they snatch, they cajole, they steal all sorts of stuff, and then bring out booklets no thicker than a primer every month or week—one of those gentlemen coaxed this same story out of Foma Grigorievich, who then forgot all about it.

Once one of those gentlemen—it’s hard for us simple folk to fit a name to them: writers, no, not writers, but the same as the dealers at our fairs: they snatch, they cajole, they steal all sorts of stuff, and then bring out booklets no thicker than a primer every month or week—one of those gentlemen coaxed this same story out of Foma Grigorievich, who then forgot all about it.

Only there comes this same young sir from Poltava in a pea-green caftan, whom I’ve already mentioned and one of whose stories I think you’ve already read, toting a little book with him, and opening it in the middle, he shows it to us.

Having a smattering of letters and not needing spectacles, I began to read.

Yes, thank God, I’ve lived so long in the world, I’ve seen such infidels as find giving a priest a ride in a sieve easier than taking snuff is for the likes of us; and they, too, go in fear of witches.

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 used to accost pretty girls: gave them ribbons, earrings, necklaces—more than they knew what to do with!

Noticing that Basavriuk did not come to church even on Easter Sunday, he decided to reprimand him and put him under a church penance.

Noticing that Basavriuk did not come to church even on Easter Sunday, he decided to reprimand him and put him under a church penance.

“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!”

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, 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.

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...

Having said that, he gave him a slight cuff, so that Petrus, not seeing the ground under him, went flying headlong.

The vodka pricked his tongue like nettles and tasted bitterer to him than wormwood.

“How it glows! heh, heh, heh!” he bellowed, pouring gold coins into his hand. “How it rings! heh, heh, heh! And I’ll ask just one thing for a whole heap of such baubles.”

“Do you see the three knolls standing before you? There will be many different flowers on them; but may the otherworldly powers keep you from picking so much as one. Only as soon as the fern begins to flower, grab it and don’t turn around, whatever you fancy is behind you.”

Where are the flowers? Nothing could be seen. Wild weeds stood blackly around, stifling everything with their thickness.

Doubt came over Petro, and he stood before them pondering, arms akimbo.

Hideous monsters leaped before him in throngs.

But Petro couldn’t even remember his face: so addled he was by that cursed devilry!

...young women in tall headdresses, the upper part made all of gold brocade, with a small cutout behind and a golden kerchief peeking from it, with two little peaks of the finest black astrakhan, one pointing backward and the other forward, in blue jackets of the best silk with red flaps, stepped out imposingly one by one, arms akimbo, and rhythmically stamped away at the gopak.

How young lads in tall Cossack hats and fine flannel blouses with silver-embroidered belts, pipes in their teeth, bobbed and pranced before them, cutting all sorts of capers.

With a bandore in his hands, puffing on his pipe and humming at the same time, the old fellow put a glass on his head and, to the loud shouts of the revelers, broke into a squatting dance.

When Pidorka manages to make him talk about something, he seems to forget it all and starts to speak, and even almost cheers up; then he glances inadvertently at the sacks and cries out: “Wait, wait, I forgot!” and falls to thinking again, and again strains to remember something.

Many Cossacks had reaped their hay and harvested their crops; many Cossacks, the more riotous sort, had set out on campaign.

The steppes were turning red.

Shocks of wheat stood here and there like bright Cossack hats strewn over the fields.

On a clear, frosty day, the red-breasted bullfinch, like a foppish Polish gentleman, was already strolling over the snowdrifts pecking at seeds, and children with enormous sticks were sending wooden whirligigs over the ice, while their fathers calmly stayed stretched on the stove, stepping out every once in a while, a lighted pipe in their teeth, to say a word or two about the good Orthodox frost, or to get some fresh air and thresh some grain that had long been sitting in the front hall.

Fury comes over him; like a demented man, he gnaws and bites his hands and tears out tufts of his hair in vexation, until he grows calm, drops down as if oblivious, and then again tries to remember, and again fury, and again torment.

Petro lay oblivious on the bench and did not notice the new visitor at all.

Suddenly he trembled all over, as if on the scaffold; his hair rose in a shock...and he laughed such a laugh that fear cut into Pidorka’s heart.

“Stop, stop!”—but nothing doing: arms akimbo, with an imposing air, it broke into a squatting dance all around the room.

Smoke poured from the sooty chimney in a column and, rising so high that your hat would fall off if you looked at it, poured hot coals all over the steppes, and the devil—no need to mention that son-of-a-dog—sobbed so pitifully in his hovel that the frightened jackdaws rose in flocks from the nearby oak grove and with wild cries dashed about the sky.