Short Fiction by Vladimir Korolenko (ready player one ebook TXT) 📕

I see how sly you are! You begin quarrelling with a man’s song before he has sung it to the end. That’s the devil’s own trick! You don’t know the proverb, I see: don’t go to hell before your father; if you do, you’ll be sorry. If that’s how you feel, I’d better sing my song to the end, so here goes:

Yes, the vodka in the inn
Is good as any sold;
Two parts of it are liquor,
One is water cold.

“Get out of the way, then! What are you standing there for? What do you want now? Wait a minute till I get out of my wagon and find out whether you’re going to stand there much longer! What would you think if I gave you a taste of my stick, hey?”

“I’m going in a minute, my good man, only tell me one thing more. What would you think if the devil flew away with your miller here as he flew away with Yankel?”

“What would I think? I wouldn’t think anything at all. He’ll get him some day, that’s certain; he’ll surely get him. But you’re still standing there, I see. Take care, I’m climbing out of my wagon! Look, I’ve already raised one leg!”

“All right, all right, go along with you if you’re as cross as all that!”

“Are you out of the way?”

“Yes.”

“Gee, gee, gee-up!”

The oxen shook their horns, the yoke and axles creaked, the wagon trembled, and Opanas continued his song:

“Oxen, oxen, how you crawl,
Hurry up and trot.
The miller has my coat and wheels,
So now he has the lot.”

The wheels bumped down off the dam, and Opanas’ song died away behind the hill.

But before it had quite died away another song rang out from across the river. A ringing chorus of women’s voices came streaming through the night, first from afar, and then from in the wood. A party of women and girls, who had been gathering in the harvest on a distant farm, were now on their way home late at night, and were singing to give themselves courage in the wood.

The devil at once slipped to Yankel’s side under the willow tree.

“Come, give me something more to wear, quick!”

Yankel handed him a heap of rags. The devil hurled them to the ground, and seized the bundle.

“Here! What do you mean by giving me these rags as if I were a beggar? I’d be ashamed to be seen in them. Give me something respectable!”

The devil seized what he wanted, folded his wings, which were as soft as a bat’s, in a second, jumped like a flash into a pair of blue breeches as wide as the sea, threw on the rest of his clothes, drew his belt tight, and covered his horns with a high fur hat. Only his tail hung out over the top of one boot, and trailed along in the sand like a snake.

Then he smacked his lips, stamped his foot, stuck his arms akimbo, and went out to meet the lasses, looking for all the world like any young townsman, or perhaps some would-be gentleman steward.

He planted himself in the middle of the dam.

The song rang out nearer and nearer and clearer and clearer, floating away under the bright moon until it seemed as if it must wake the whole of the sleeping world. Then it suddenly broke off short.

The young women poured out of the wood as poppies might pour out of a girl’s apron, saw the longtailed dandy standing before them, and instantly huddled together in a group at the farther end of the dam.

“Who is that standing there?” asked one of the girls.

“It’s the miller,” answered another.

“The miller! Why, it doesn’t look like him one bit!”

“Perhaps it’s his workman.”

“Who ever saw a workman dressed like that?”

“Tell us who you are if you’re not a bad spirit!” called the widow Buchilikha, evidently the boldest of the party.

The devil bowed to them from a distance, and then approached, cringing and scraping like any little upstart who tries to appear a gentleman.

“Don’t be afraid, my birdies,” said he. “I’m a young man, but I won’t do you any harm. Come on, and don’t be afraid.”

Each trying to push the other ahead, the women and girls stepped on to the dam, and soon surrounded the devil. Ah, there is nothing pleasanter than to be surrounded by a dozen or so frolicsome lasses bombarding you with swift glances, nudging one another with their elbows, and giggling. The devil’s heart was beginning to leap and sparkle a little, like birch bark in a fire; he hardly knew what to do or where to turn. And the girls kept laughing at him louder and louder.

“That’s right, that’s right, little birdies!” thought the miller, peering out from behind his gnarled willow-tree. “Remember, my duckies, how many songs Philipko has sung with you, how many dances he has led! See what trouble I’m in! Save me; I’m caught like a fly in a cobweb!”

He thought that if only they were to give the devil one little pinch the fiend would sink into the ground.

But old Buchilikha stopped the girls and exclaimed:

“Get along with you, little magpies, you’ve laughed at the poor lad till his nose hangs down and his arms are limp. Tell us, young fellow, for whom are you waiting here at the edge of the pond?”

“For the miller.”

“Then you’re a friend of his?”

“A plague upon any friend of mine that’s like him!” the miller tried to cry, but his words stuck in his throat, and the devil replied:

“He’s no very great friend of mine, but I can call him an old acquaintance.”

“Is it long since you’ve seen him?”

“Yes, a long time.”

“Then you wouldn’t recognise him now. He used to be a nice lad, but he holds his head so high now that you couldn’t touch his nose with a pitchfork.”

“Really?”

“Yes, indeed. It’s true, isn’t it, girls?”

“It’s true, true, true!” chattered the whole bevy.

“Tut, tut, not quite so loud!” cried the devil, putting his fingers in his ears.