The Fair at Sorochintsi

IX

In front, like anyone else;
Behind, I swear, like a devil!

From a folk tale

“Do you hear, Vlas?” one of the crowd asleep in the street said, sitting up; “someone spoke of the devil near us!”

“What is it to me?” the gypsy near him grumbled, stretching. “They may talk of all their kindred for all I care!”

“But he bawled, you know, as though he were being strangled!”

“A man will cry out anything in his sleep!”

“Say what you like, we must have a look. Strike a light!”

The other gypsy, grumbling to himself, rose to his feet, sent a shower of sparks flying like lightning flashes, blew the tinder with his lips, and with a kaganets in his hands—the usual Little Russian lamp consisting of a broken pot full of mutton fat—set off, lighting the way before him.

“Stop! There is something lying here! Show a light this way!”

Here they were joined by several others.

“What’s lying there, Vlas?”

“Why, it looks like two men: one on top, the other under. Which of them is the devil I can’t make out yet!”

“Why, who is on top?”

“A woman!”

“Oh, well, then that’s the devil!”

A general shout of laughter roused almost the whole street.

“A woman straddling a man! I suppose she knows how to ride!” one of the bystanders exclaimed.

“Look, boys!” said another, picking up a broken piece of the basin of which only one half still remained on Cherevik’s head, “what a cap this fine fellow put on!”

The growing noise and laughter brought our corpses to life, and Cherevik and his spouse, full of the panic they had known, gazed with bulging eyes in terror at the swarthy faces of the gypsies; in the dim and flickering light they looked like a wild horde of dark subterranean creatures, reeking of hell.