The Fair at Sorochintsi

XII

“In what am I to blame, good folks?
Why are you beating me?” said our poor wretch.
“Why are you falling upon me?
What for, what for?” he said, bursting into tears,
Streams of bitter tears, and clutching at his sides.

ARTEMOVSKY-GULAK, Master and Dog

“Maybe you really have picked up something, friend?” Cherevik asked, as he lay bound beside Tsibulya in a thatched shanty.

“You too, friend! May my arms and legs wither if ever I stole anything in my life, except maybe buns and cream from my mother, and that only before I was ten years old.”

“Why has this trouble come upon us? It’s not so bad for you: you are charged, anyway, with stealing from somebody else; but what have I, unlucky wretch, done to deserve such a foul slander, as stealing my mare from myself? It seems it was written at our birth that we should have no luck!”

“Woe to us, forlorn and forsaken!”

At this point the two friends fell to weeping violently.

“What’s the matter with you, Cherevik?” said Grytsko, entering at that moment. “Who tied you up like that?”

“Ah, Golopupenko, Golopupenko!” cried Cherevik, delighted. “Here, this is the fellow I was telling you about. Ah, he is a smart one! God strike me dead on the spot if he did not toss off a whole jug, almost as big as your head, and never turned a hair!”

“What made you ignore such a fine fellow, then, friend?”

“Here, you see,” Cherevik went on, addressing Grytsko, “God has punished me, it seems, for having wronged you. Forgive me, good lad! I swear I’d be glad to do anything for you…. But what would you have me do? There’s the devil in my old woman!”

“I am not one to hold a grudge, Cherevik! If you like, I’ll set you free!”

Here he made a sign to the other fellows and the same ones who were guarding them ran to untie them.

“Then you must do your part, too: a wedding! And let us keep it up so that our legs ache with dancing for a year afterwards!”

“Good, good!” said Cherevik, striking his hands together. “I feel as pleased as though the soldiers had carried off my old woman! Why give it another thought? Whether she likes it or not, the wedding shall be today—and that’s all there is to it!”

“Mind now, Solopy: in an hour’s time I will be with you; but now go home—there you will find purchasers for your mare and your wheat.”

“What! has the mare been found?”

“Yes.”

Cherevik was struck dumb with joy and stood still, gazing after Grytsko.

“Well, Grytsko, have we mishandled the job?” said the tall gypsy to the hurrying young man. “The oxen are mine now, aren’t they?”

“Yours! yours!”