Viy — Страница 20

"And have you heard about Shepchikha?" said Dorosh, addressing Khoma.
No.
"Oh-ho! Then it's clear they don't teach you much sense there in your
seminary. Well, listen! In our settlement there's a Cossack named Sheptun. A
good Cossack! He likes to stea! or tell a he sometimes without any need,
but... a good Cossack! His place isn't far from here. At this same time as
we're now having supper, Sheptun and his wife finished eating and went to
bed, and since the weather was fine, Shepchikha slept outside and Sheptun
inside
on a bench; or, no, it was Shepchikha inside on a bench and Shep-Cun
outside . . ."
"And not on a bench, Shepchikha lay on the floor," the woman picked up,
standing in the doorway, her cheek propped on her hand.
Dorosh looked at her, then at the floor, then at her again, and after a
pause said:
"When 1 pull your underwear off in front of everybody, it won't be so
nice."
This warning had its effect. The old woman fell silent and did not
interrupt anymore.
Dorosh went on.
"And in a cradle that hung in the middle of the hut lay their
one-year-old baby--1 don't know whether of male or female sex. Shepchikha
lay there, and then she heard a dog scratching outside the door and howling
so loud you just wanted to flee the house. She got frightened--for women are
such foolish folk that you could stick your tongue out at her behind the
door at night and she'd have her heart in her mouth. 'Anyhow,' she thinks,
'why don't I go and hit the cursed dog in the snout, maybe it'll stop
howling.' And taking her poker, she went to open the door. As soon as it was
slightly open, the dog darted between her legs and went straight for the
baby's cradle. Shepchikha saw that it was no longer a dog but the young
miss. And if it had been the young miss looking the way she knew her, it
would have been nothing; but there was this one thing and circumstance: that
she was all blue and her eyes were burning like coals. She grabbed the baby,
bit its throat, and began drinking its blood. Shepchikha only cried out,
'Ah, evil thing!' and fled. But she saw that the front doors were locked.
She ran to the attic. The foolish woman sat there trembling, and then she
saw that the young miss was coming to the attic. She fell on the foolish
woman and started biting her. It was morning before Sheptun got his wife out
of there, blue and bitten all over. And the next day the foolish woman died.
That's what arrangements and temptations can happen! Though she's the
master's progeny, all the same a witch is a witch,"
After this story, Dorosli looked around smugly and poked his forefinger
into his pipe, preparing to fill it with tobacco. The material about the
witch became inexhaustible.