The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol Read Online Free PDF Page B

the blacksmith’s lips, and pushed him away.
    “What more do you want?He’s got honey and asks for a spoon!Go away, your hands are harder than iron.And you smell of smoke.I suppose you’ve made me all sooty.”
    Here she took the mirror and again began to preen herself.
    “She doesn’t love me,” the blacksmith thought to himself, hanging his head.“It’s all a game for her.And I stand before her like a fool, not taking my eyes off her.And I could just go on standing before her and never take my eyes off her!A wonderful girl!I’d give anything to find out what’s in her heart, whom she loves!But, no, she doesn’t care about anybody.She admires her own self; she torments poor me; and I’m blind to the world from sorrow; I love her as no one in the world has ever loved or ever will love.”
    “Is it true your mother’s a witch?” said Oksana, and she laughed; and the blacksmith felt everything inside him laugh.It was as if this laughter echoed all at once in his heart and in his quietly aroused nerves, and at the same time vexation came over his soul that it was not in his power to cover this so nicely laughing face with kisses.
    “What do I care about my mother?You are my mother, and my father, and all that’s dear in the world.If the tsar summoned me and said: ‘Blacksmith Vakula, ask me for whatever is best in my kingdom, and I will give it all to you.I’ll order a golden smithy made for you, and you’ll forge with silver hammers.’ I’d say to the tsar: ‘I don’t want precious stones, or a golden smithy, or all your kingdom: better give me my Oksana!’ ”
    “See how you are!Only my father is nobody’s fool.You’ll see if he doesn’t marry your mother,” Oksana said with a sly smile.“Anyhow, the girls are not here … what could that mean?It’s long since time for caroling.I’m beginning to get bored.”
    “Forget them, my beauty.”
    “Ah, no!they’ll certainly come with the lads.We’ll have a grand party.I can imagine what funny stories they’ll have to tell!”
    “So you have fun with them?”
    “More fun than with you.Ah!somebody’s knocking; it must be the lads and girls.”
    “Why should I wait anymore?” the blacksmith said to himself.“She taunts me.I’m as dear to her as a rusty horseshoe.But if so, at least no other man is going to have the laugh on me.Just let me see for certain that she likes somebody else more than me—I’ll teach him …”
    The knocking at the door and the cry of “Open!” sounding sharply in the frost interrupted his reflections.
    “Wait, I’ll open it myself,” said the blacksmith, and he stepped into the front hall, intending in his vexation to give a drubbing to the first comer.
    I T WAS FREEZING , and up aloft it got so cold that the devil kept shifting from one hoof to the other and blowing into his palms, trying to warm his cold hands at least a little.It’s no wonder, however, that somebody would get cold who had knocked about all day in hell, where, as we know, it is not so cold as it is here in winter, and where, a chef’s hat on his head and standing before the hearth like a real cook, he had been roasting sinners with as much pleasure as any woman roasts sausages at Christmas.
    The witch herself felt the cold, though she was warmly dressed; and so, arms up and leg to one side, in the posture of someone racing along on skates, without moving a joint, she descended through the air, as if down an icy slope, and straight into the chimney.
    The devil followed after her in the same fashion.But since this beast is nimbler than any fop in stockings, it was no wonder that at the very mouth of the chimney he came riding down on his lover’s neck, and the two ended up inside the big oven among the pots.
    The traveler quietly slid the damper aside to see whether her son, Vakula, had invited guests into the house, but seeing no one there except for some sacks lying in the middle of the room, she got out of the oven, threw off her