The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol Read Online Free PDF

scurrying.The lads chased after her in droves, but, losing patience, gradually dropped out and turned to others less spoiled.The blacksmith alone persisted and would not leave off his wooing, though he was treated no better than the rest.
    After her father left, she spent a long time dressing up and putting on airs before a small tin-framed mirror, and couldn’t have enough of admiring herself.“Why is it that people decided to praise my prettiness?” she said as if distractedly, so as to chat with herself about something.“People lie, I’m not pretty at all.” But in the mirror flashed her fresh face, alive in its child’s youngness, with shining dark eyes and an inexpressibly lovely smile which burned the soul through, and all at once proved the opposite.“Are my dark eyebrows and eyes,” the beauty went on, not letting go of the mirror, “so pretty that they have no equal in the world?What’s so pretty about this upturned nose?and these cheeks?and lips?As if my dark braids are pretty!Ugh!they could be frightening in the evening: they twist and twine around my head like long snakes.I see now that I’m not pretty at all!” and then, holding the mirror further away from her face, she exclaimed: “No, I am pretty!Ah, how pretty!A wonder!What joy I’ll bring to the one whose wife I become!How my husband will admire me!He won’t know who he is.He’ll kiss me to death.”
    “A wonderful girl!” the blacksmith, who had quietly come in, whispered, “and so little boasting!She’s been standing for an hourlooking in the mirror and hasn’t had enough, and she even praises herself aloud!”
    “Yes, lads, am I a match for you?Just look at me,” the pretty little coquette went on, “how smooth my step is; my shirt is embroidered with red silk.And what ribbons in my hair!You won’t see richer galloons ever!All this my father bought so that the finest fellow in the world would marry me!” And, smiling, she turned around and saw the blacksmith …
    She gave a cry and stopped sternly in front of him.
    The blacksmith dropped his arms.
    It’s hard to say what the wonderful girl’s dusky face expressed: sternness could be seen in it, and through the sternness a certain mockery of the abashed blacksmith; and a barely noticeable tinge of vexation also spread thinly over her face; all this was so mingled and so indescribably pretty that to kiss her a million times would have been the best thing to do at that moment.
    “Why have you come here?” So Oksana began speaking.“Do you want to be driven out the door with a shovel?You’re all masters at sidling up to us.You instantly get wind of it when our fathers aren’t home.Oh, I know you!What, is my chest ready?”
    “It will be ready, my dear heart, it will be ready after the holiday.If you knew how I’ve worked on it: for two nights I didn’t leave the smithy.Not a single priest’s daughter will have such a chest.I trimmed it with such iron as I didn’t even put on the chief’s gig when I went to work in Poltava.And how it will be painted!Go all around the neighborhood with your little white feet and you won’t find the like of it!There will be red and blue flowers all over.It will glow like fire.Don’t be angry with me!Allow me at least to talk, at least to look at you!”
    “Who’s forbidding you—talk and look at me!”
    Here she sat down on the bench and again looked in the mirror and began straightening the braids on her head.She looked at her neck, at her new silk-embroidered shirt, and a subtle feeling of self-content showed on her lips and her fresh cheeks, and was mirrored in her eyes.
    “Allow me to sit down beside you!” said the blacksmith.
    “Sit,” said Oksana, keeping the same feeling on her lips and in her pleased eyes.
    “Wonderful, darling Oksana, allow me to kiss you!” the encouraged blacksmith said and pressed her to him with the intention of snatching a kiss; but Oksana withdrew her cheeks, which were a very short distance from