Viy — Страница 19

And therefore, wishing to bring him back to the former
matter, he addressed his neighbor with these words:
"I wanted to ask, why is it that all the folk sitting here over supper
consider the young miss a witch? What, did she cause some evil or put a hex
on somebody or other?"
"There were all kinds of things," replied one of the seated men, with a
smooth face extremely like a shovei.
"And who doesn't remember the huntsman Mikita, or that. . ."
"And what about the huntsman Mikita?" said the philosopher.
"Wait! I'll tell about the huntsman Mikita," said Dorosh.
"I'll tell about Mikita," said the herdsman, "because he was my chum."
"I'll tell about Mikita," said Spirid.
"Let him! Let Spirid tell it!" shouted the crowd.
Spirid began:
"You, mister philosopher Khoma, didn't know Mikita, Ah, what a rare man
he was! He knew every dog like his own father, so he did. The present
huntsman Mikola, who's sitting third down from me, can't hold a candle to
him. He also knows his business, but next to Mikita he's trash, slops."
"You're telling it good, really good!" said Dorosh, nodding
approvingly.
Spirid went on:
"He'd spot a rabbit quicker than you could take a pinch of snuff.
He'd whistle: 'Here, Robber! Here, Racer!' and be off at full speed on
his horse, and there'd be no telling whether he was ahead of the dog or the
dog ahead of him. He'd toss off a pint of rotgut as if it had never been
there. A fine huntsman he was! Only in more recent days he started staring
at the young miss all the time. Either he was really smitten, or she'd put a
spell on him, only it was the end of the man, he went all soft, turned into
devil knows what-- pah! it's even indecent to say it."
"Good," said Dorosh.
"The young miss would no sooner glance at him than he'd drop the
bridle, call Robber Grouchy, stumble all over, and do God knows what. Once
the young miss tame to the stable where he was grooming a horse. 'Mikitka,'
she says, 'let me lay my little leg on you.' And he, the tomfool, gets all
happy 'Not only your little leg,' he says, 'you can sit right on me.' The
young miss lifted up her leg, and when he saw her bare leg, white and plump,
the charm, he says, just stunned him. He bent his back, the tomfool, grabbed
her bare legs with both hands, and went galloping like a horse all over the
fields. And he couldn't tell anything about where they rode, only he came
back barely alive, and after that he got all wasted, like a chip of wood.
And once, when they came to the stable, instead of him there was just a heap
of ashes and an empty bucket lying there: he burned up, burned up of his own
self. And what a huntsman he was, you won't find another like him in the
whole world."
When Spirid finished his story, talk came from all sides about the
merits of the former huntsman.