Fifty-Two Stories

“What do you know?” his wife asked softly, not taking her eyes from the window.

“I know this, that it’s all your doing, you she-devil! It’s your doing, curse you! This blizzard, and the postman going in circles…You caused it all! You!”

“You’re raving, you silly man,” his wife observed calmly.

“I noticed it about you long ago! When we were just married, in the first days, I saw you had a bitch’s blood in you!”

“Pah!” Raissa was surprised, shrugged, and crossed herself. “Cross yourself, too, dimwit!”

“A witch, you’re a witch!” Savely went on in a hollow, tearful voice, hastily blowing his nose on the hem of his shirt. “Though you’re my wife, though you’re also of the clerical estate, I’ll even tell at confession what you are…What else? Lord, save us and have mercy on us! Last year on the day of the prophet Daniel and the three holy youths,¹ there was a blizzard and—what then? A foreman stopped by to get warm. Then on the day of St. Alexei the man of God,² the ice on the river broke up, and the constable dropped by…He spent the whole night here jabbering with you, curse him, and when he appeared in the morning, and I looked at him, he had black rings around his eyes and his cheeks were all sunken! Eh? During the Dormition fast³ there were thunderstorms twice, and both times the huntsman came to spend the night. I saw it all, curse him! All! Oh, you’ve turned red as a crayfish! Hah!”

“You didn’t see anything…”

“Oh, no! And this winter, before Christmas, on the day of the Ten Martyrs of Crete,⁴ when a blizzard went on all day and night…Remember?—when the marshal’s clerk lost his way and wound up here, the dog…And what were you tempted by! Phoo, a clerk! It wasn’t worth riling up God’s weather on his account! A puny devil, a runt, a mere speck, his mug all in blackheads, his neck bent…Maybe if he was handsome, but him—pah—a satan!”

The sexton caught his breath, wiped his lips, and listened. There was no bell to be heard, but the wind tore over the roof, and in the darkness outside the window something clanged again.

“And now, too!” Savely went on. “It’s not for nothing this postman is circling! Spit in my eye if the postman isn’t looking for you! Oh, the devil knows his business, he’s a good helper! He’ll make him circle and circle and lead him here. I kno-o-ow! I see-e-e! You can’t hide it, you devil’s chatterbox, you fiend’s lust! As soon as the blizzard started, I immediately understood your thoughts.”

“What a dimwit!” his wife smirked. “So, to your foolish mind, I can cause bad weather?”

“Hm…Go on, smirk! You or not you, only I notice as soon as your blood begins to act up, there’s bad weather, and once there’s bad weather, whatever madman is around comes racing here. It happens each time. So it’s you!”

For greater persuasiveness, the sexton put a finger to his brow, closed his left eye, and said in a sing-song voice:

“O, madness! O, Judas’s fiendishness! If you are indeed a human being and not a witch, you should have thought in your head: What if those were not a foreman, a huntsman, or a clerk, but the devil in their guise! Eh? You’d have thought that.”

“How stupid you are, Savely!” his wife sighed, looking at him with pity. “When my papa was alive and lived here, all sorts of people used to come to him to be treated for ague: from the village, from the settlements, from the Armenian farmsteads. It seems they came every day, and nobody called them devils. And with us, if somebody comes once to warm up in bad weather, you, you stupid man, start wondering and getting all sorts of ideas.”

Savely was affected by his wife’s logic. He stood with his legs apart, his head bent, thinking. He was not yet firmly convinced of his suppositions, and his wife’s sincere, indifferent tone threw him off completely, but, even so, after thinking a little, he shook his head and said:

“It’s not old men or some sort of bandylegs, it’s all young ones that are asking to spend the night…Why’s that? And they don’t just get warm, they play the devil’s own games. No, woman, there’s no creature in this world slyer than your womankind. Of true reason there’s none in you, less than in a starling, but of demonic slyness—o-o-oh!—Queen of Heaven, save us! There, the postman’s ringing! The blizzard had only just begun when I already knew all your thoughts! You witched it all up, you spider!”

“Why are you badgering me, curse you?” His wife lost all patience. “Why are you badgering me, you beast?”

“I’m badgering you because if, God forbid, something happens tonight…you listen!…If something happens, tomorrow at the crack of dawn I’ll go to Father Nikodim in Dyadkino and tell him everything. Thus and so, I’ll say, Father Nikodim, mercifully forgive me, but she’s a witch. Why? Hm…you want to know why? All right…Thus and so…And woe to you, woman! You’ll be punished not only at the Last Judgment, but also in this earthly life! It’s not for nothing there are prayers against your kind in the service book.”