Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko

“ All you can do now is to marry rich old Makogon's daughter Motria."
"There you are! I can see for myself and every one says that my money and old Makogon's would just match, but there you are again—the girl is so ugly. She sits all day like a great bale of hay everlastingly hulling seeds. Every time I look at her I feel as if some one had got me by the nose and were pulling me away from her. How different Galya is! That's why I say everything is wrong in this world. If a man loves one girl the other one's sure to have the money. ”

“ But the devil's mind now seemed to be quite made up. He glanced at the girls out of one corner of his eye and rubbed his hands together.
"And that isn't all!" shouted the widow Buchilikha louder than the loudest. "Have you heard what he wanted to do to the widow's Galya?"
"Faugh!" spat the miller. "What a damned lot of magpies they are! What need to tell what they're not asked about? And how in the world did they find it out? Though it only happened in the village to-night, they have heard the whole story in the hay-fields! Why on earth does God allow women to live in this world?" ”

“ As he gazed at the pond he saw in the water something resembling a gnat flying across the stars. He looked more closely, and saw the gnat grow to the size of a fly, and the fly to a sparrow, and the sparrow to a crow, and the crow to a hawk.
"Well, I'll be damned!" cried the miller, and, raising his eyes, he saw something flying not through the water but through the air, and making straight for the mill.
"The Lord preserve us! There's Khapun again hurrying to the city after his prey. Look at him, the unholy brute, how late he is this time! ”

“ The devil quivered with rage. He ran round and round on the same spot like a chicken with its head off, and knocked Yankel down with his wing. He was panting like a blacksmith's bellows.
"Well, I never!" the miller thought. "I don't care if it is sin to admire a devil, I do admire this one; he would never let his lawful property slip between his fingers, one can see that!"
Yankel sat up and began to yell with all his might. Even the devil could do nothing to stop him. Every one knows that as long as a Jew has a breath in his body nothing will make him hold his tongue. ”

“ Sharp rivulets of icy water were running in streams over Makar's heated body; the snow had gone up his sleeves and was trickling down his back and into his boots. That infernal Aliosha had taken away his cap and Makar well knew that the pitiless cold does not jest with men who go into the taiga without gloves and without a hat.
He had already walked far. According to his calculations he should long since have been in sight of the church steeple, but here he was still in the forest. The taiga held him in its embrace like a witch. ”

“ The snowy expanse lay shining brightly, bathed in the rays of the moon, but from time to time the moonlight faded and the white fields grew dark until, with a sudden flash, the radiance of the Northern Lights streamed across them. Then it seemed as if the snowy hills and the forest that clothed them were coming very close, to withdraw once again into the distant shadow. Makar spied plainly through the trees the silvery bald crown of the little knoll behind which his traps were waiting for all the wild dwellers of the forest. ”

“ Probably not a bone was left of Yankel by now; his orphans had wandered away into the wide world, and their hut was as dark as a tomb. The miller's heart was as full of darkness as the deserted Jewish khata.
"I didn't save the Jew," he thought. "It was I who made his children orphans, and now what dreadful things am I plotting against the widow's daughter?"
"Would it be right for us to do it?" he asked of Kharko.
"Why not? Of course there are some people who won't eat honey. Perhaps you are one of them." ”

“ Makar looked round. The white, empty plain lay stretched out far behind them; the Tartar appeared for a second upon it, a tiny, distant dot. Makar thought he could distinguish the white cloud rising from under the hoofs of his piebald, but next moment the dot, too, had vanished.
"Well, well, the Tartar will manage all right without his mahorka. You see how he has ruined my horse, the scoundrel!"
"No, he has not ruined your horse," answered the priest. "That horse was stolen. Have you not heard the old men say that a stolen horse will never go far?" ”

“ The devil seized what he wanted, folded his wings, which were as soft as a bat's, in a second, jumped like a flash into a pair of blue breeches as wide as the sea, threw on the rest of his clothes, drew his belt tight, and covered his horns with a high fur hat. Only his tail hung out over the top of one boot, and trailed along in the sand like a snake.
Then he smacked his lips, stamped his foot, stuck his arms akimbo, and went out to meet the lasses, looking for all the world like any young townsman, or perhaps some would-be gentleman steward. ”

“ As it flew across the moon the miller at last saw very clearly what it was, for against that bright orb were silhouetted a pair of dark, flapping wings, and below them was hanging a human form with a long, quivering beard.
"Aha, here's a pretty to do!" thought the miller. "He's carrying one of them away. What shall I do? If I shout to him: drop it, it is mine! the poor Jew may break his neck or fall into the pond. He's pretty high up."
But he soon saw that the situation was changing. The devil was circling over the mill with his burden, and beginning to sink to the ground. ”

“ To atone for his neglect, this last tug was so violent that the miller actually jumped as the sound came rolling over the hill, over his head, across the river, across the wood, and away over the distant fields through which wound the road to the city.
"Every one is asleep now," the miller thought, and something gripped his heart. "Every one is asleep where he wants to be; all but the Jews crowded weeping into their churches, and I, who am standing here by my mill-pond like a lost soul, thinking wicked thoughts." ”

“ And the scales trembled once more but the old Toyon pondered.
"How is this?" he asked. "Have I not many on earth who are truly righteous? Their eyes are clear, their faces are bright, and their garments are without a stain. Their hearts are mellow as well tilled soil in which flourishes good seed, sending up strong and fragrant shoots whose odour is pleasant to my nostrils. But you look at yourself!"
All eyes were now turned on Makar, and he felt ashamed. ”

“ The larches were now standing meekly and quietly over him, as if ashamed of their former pranks. The shaggy spruces stretched out their long snow-covered arms and rocked themselves gently, gently, and the starry snowflakes settled softly through the air.
The kind, bright stars looked down through the branches from the dark blue sky, and seemed to be saying: "See, a poor man has died!"
Over Makar's prostrate form and prodding him with his foot stood the old priest Ivan. His long cassock was white with snow; snow lay upon his fur hat, his shoulders, and his beard. ”

“ And though for some time before his death he had intended to buy a pair of new boots in which to appear at the Judgment, he somehow had always managed to drink up the money, and now stood before the Toyon in wretched fur shoes like a Yakut.
"Your face is dull," the Toyon went on. "Your eyes are bleared and your clothes are torn. Your heart is choked with weeds and thistles and bitter wormwood. That is why I love my righteous and turn my face from the ungodly such as you."
Makar's heart contracted and he blushed for his own existence. ”

“ I see you; there you are, standing under the sycamore tree. Have pity on a poor Jew! He has a living soul like you!"
Very, very piteous were poor Yankel's lamentations! Icy fingers seemed to clutch the miller's heart and squeeze it until it ached. The devil seemed to be waiting for something, his wings fluttered like the wings of a young bustard that has not learnt to fly. He hovered silently over the dam with Yankel in his talons.
"What a wretch that devil is!" thought the miller, hiding farther under the trees. "He is only tormenting the poor Jew. ”

“ You are not on earth. There is justice here for you, also."
At that Makar trembled. The idea that some one pitied him dawned upon his mind and filled and softened his heart, but because his whole miserable existence now lay exposed before him from his first day to his last, unbearable self-pity overwhelmed him and he burst into tears.
And the ancient Toyon wept with him. And old Father Ivan wept, and the young servants of God shed tears and wiped them away with their wide sleeves.
And the scales wavered, and the wooden bowl rose ever higher and higher! ”

“ He beats on the windows with his wings, and looks in to choose his prey. But when midnight comes, that's when the Jews begin to get really frightened. They light all the candles to give themselves courage, fall down on the floor, and begin to scream as if some one were cutting their throats. And while they are lying there squirming Khapun flies into the room in the shape of a great crow, and they all feel the cold wind of his wings blowing across their hearts. The Jew whom Khapun has already spotted through the window feels the devil's claws sinking into his back. ”

“ It will be lucky for him if he wasn't too high up and if he falls into a bog or some other soft spot. If he doesn't, no one will profit by his fall, neither he nor the devil."
"So that's how it is!" said the miller, staring nervously at the sky, in which the moon was shining with all its might. The heavens were clear; only one little cloudlet like a bit of black down was flying swiftly along between the moon and the wood that shrouded the river bank. It was a cloud, of course, but one thing about it seemed strange to the miller. ”

“ The moon had by now risen high in the heavens and the tail of the Great Bear was dipping toward the horizon. The cold was tightening its grasp. The first fiery shafts of the Aurora were flaring up fitfully out of a dark, semicircular cloud in the north and playing softly across the sky.
The piebald, realising, it seemed, his master's condition, trudged carefully and soberly homeward. Makar sat in his sled, swaying from side to side, and continued his song. He sang that he had drunk away five loads of wood, and that his old woman would kill him when he got home. ”

“ Gavrilo stared at the dam, scratched his topknot, and looked up at the sky.
"There's a marvel for you! What'll we do now? How can we get along without the Jew?"
"Why are you so anxious to have a Jew here, hey?"
"It isn't only me. One can't—oh, don't argue about it, master, things wouldn't be the same without a Jew; one couldn't get along without one."
"Tut, tut! What a fool you are!"
"What are you scolding me for? I don't say I'm clever, but I know millet from buckwheat. I work in the mill, but I drink vodka at the tavern. Tell me, as you're so clever, who will be our inn-keeper now?" ”

“ Listen to me, man; go out of your khata on a clear night, or better still walk to the top of some little hill, and look well at the sky and the earth. Watch the bright moon climbing the heavens, and the stars winking and twinkling, and the light clouds of mist rising from the earth and wandering off somewhere one behind the other like belated travellers on a night journey. The woods will lie as if bewitched, listening to the spells that rise from them after the midnight hour, and the sleepy river will flow murmuring by you, whispering to the sycamores on its banks. ”

“ So Makar rose, muttering under his breath that they couldn't even let a man alone after he was dead.
The priest walked before and Makar followed. They went always straight ahead, and the larches stood meekly aside and allowed them to pass; they were going eastward.
Makar noted with surprise that Father Ivan left no tracks in the snow behind him; he looked under his own feet and saw no tracks either; the snow lay as fresh and smooth as a table cloth.
How easy it would be now, he reflected, to rob other men's traps, as no one could find him out! ”