white hands. Impossible was it for him sufficiently to look at her, to gaze on her beauty!Next morning he said to his father and mother, "Please allow me to get married. I've found myself a bride." His parents gave their consent. As for Marusia, she said:
"Only on this condition will I marry you--that for four years I need not go to church."
[Pg 30] "Very good," said he.
Well, they were married, and they lived together one year, two years, and had a son. But one day they had visitors at their house, who
enjoyed themselves, and drank, and began bragging about their wives. This one's wife was handsome; that one's was handsomer still. "You may say what you like," says the host, "but a handsomer wife than mine does not exist in the whole world!"
"Handsome, yes!" reply the guests, "but a heathen."
"How so?"
"Why, she never goes to church."
Her husband found these observations distasteful. He waited till Sunday, and then told his wife to get dressed for church. "I don't care what you may say," says he. "Go and get ready directly."
Well, they got ready, and went to church. The husband went in--didn't see anything particular. But when she looked round--there was the Fiend sitting at a window.
"Ha! here you are, at last!" he cried. "Remember old times. Were you in the church that night?"
"No."
"And did you see what I was doing there?" "No."
"Very well! To-morrow both your husband and your son will die."
Marusia rushed straight out of the church and away to her grandmother. The old woman gave her two phials, the one full of holy water, the other of the water of life, and told her what she was to do. Next day both Marusia's husband and her son died. Then the Fiend came flying to her and asked:--
"Tell me; were you in the church?" "I was."
"And did you see what I was doing?" "You were eating a corpse."
She spoke, and splashed the holy water over him; in a [Pg 31] moment he turned into mere dust and ashes, which blew to the winds.
Afterwards she sprinkled her husband and her boy with the water of life: straightway they revived. And from that time forward they
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knew neither sorrow nor separation, but they all lived together long and happily.[22]
Another lively sketch of a peasant's love-making is given in the introduction to the story of "Ivan the widow's son and Grisha."[23] The tale is one of magic and enchantment, of living clouds and seven-headed snakes; but the opening is a little piece of still-life very quaintly portrayed. A certain villager, named Trofim, having been unable to find a wife, his Aunt Melania comes to his aid, promising to procure him an interview with a widow who has been left well provided for, and whose personal appearance is attractive--"real blood and milk! When she's got on her holiday clothes, she's as fine as a peacock!" Trofim grovels with gratitude at his aunt's feet. "My own dear auntie, Melania Prokhorovna, get me married for heaven's sake! I'll buy you an embroidered kerchief in return, the very best in the whole market." The widow comes to pay Melania a visit, and is induced to believe, on the evidence of beans (frequently used for the purpose of divination), that her destined husband is close at hand. At this propitious [Pg 32] moment Trofim appears. Melania makes a little speech to the young couple, ending her recommendation to get married with the words:--
"I can see well enough by the bridegroom's eyes that the bride is to his taste, only I don't know what the bride thinks about taking him."
"I don't mind!" says the widow. "Well, then, glory be to God! Now, stand up, we'll say a prayer before the Holy Pictures; then give each other a kiss, and go in Heaven's name and get married at once!" And so the question is settled.
From a courtship and a marriage in peasant life we may turn to a death and a burial. There are frequent allusions in the Skazkas to these gloomy subjects, with reference to which we will quote two stories, the one pathetic, the other (unintentionally) grotesque. Neither of them bears any title in the original, but we may style the first--
The Dead Mother.[24]
In a certain village there lived a husband and wife--lived happily, lovingly, peaceably. All their neighbors envied them; the sight of them gave pleasure to honest folks. Well, the mistress bore a son, but directly after it was born she died. The poor moujik moaned and wept. Above all he was in despair about the babe. How was he to nourish it now? how to bring it up without its mother? He did what was best, and hired an old woman to look after it. Only here was a wonder! all day long the babe would take no food, and did nothing but cry; there was no soothing it anyhow. But during (a great part of) the night one could fancy it wasn't there at all, so silently and peacefully did it sleep.
[Pg 33] "What's the meaning of this?" thinks the old woman; "suppose I keep awake to-night; may be I shall find out."
Well, just at midnight she heard some one quietly open the door and go up to the cradle. The babe became still, just as if it was being
suckled.
The next night the same thing took place, and the third night, too. Then she told the moujik about it. He called his kinsfolk together, and held counsel with them. They determined on this; to keep awake on a certain night, and to spy out who it was that came to suckle the babe. So at eventide they all lay down on the floor, and beside them they set a lighted taper hidden in an earthen pot.
At midnight the cottage door opened. Some one stepped up to the cradle. The babe became still. At that moment one of the kinsfolk suddenly brought out the light. They looked, and saw the dead mother, in the very same clothes in which she had been buried, on her knees besides the cradle, over which she bent as she suckled the babe at her dead breast.
The moment the light shone in the cottage she stood up, gazed sadly on her little one, and then went out of the room without a sound, not saying a word to anyone. All those who saw her stood for a time terror-struck; and then they found the babe was dead. [25]
The second story will serve as an illustration of one of the Russian customs with respect to the dead, and also of the ideas about witchcraft, still prevalent in Russia. We may create for it the title of--
[Pg 34]
The Dead Witch.[26]
There was once an old woman who was a terrible witch, and she had a daughter and a granddaughter. The time came for the old crone to die, so she summoned her daughter and gave her these instructions:
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"Mind, daughter! when I'm dead, don't you wash my body with lukewarm water; but fill a cauldron, make it boil its very hottest, and
then with that boiling water regularly scald me all over."
After saying this, the witch lay ill two or three days, and then died. The daughter ran round to all her neighbors, begging them to come and help her to wash the old woman, and meantime the little granddaughter was left all alone in the cottage. And this is what she saw there. All of a sudden there crept out from beneath the stove two demons--a big one and a tiny one--and they ran up to the dead witch. The old demon seized her by the feet, and tore away at her so that he stripped off all her skin at one pull. Then he said to the little demon:
