"The Terrible Vengeance" by Nikolai Gogol

“What is this sorcerer?” asked the young and unseasoned people.

It covered the hilly bank of the Dnieper as with precious, snow-white damask muslin, and the shade sank still deeper into the pine thicket.

Master Danilo said not a word and began looking to the dark side, where far beyond the forest an earthen rampart blackened and an old castle rose from behind the rampart.

On the bank a cemetery could be seen: decrepit crosses crowded together.

Listen, Katerina, it seems to me your father doesn’t want to live in accord with us.

He arrived sullen, stern, as if he’s angry

There are oak shelves up on the walls all around. They are laden with bowls and pots for eating.

Thank God, I’ve never yet been part of any dishonorable thing; I’ve always stood for the Orthodox faith and the fatherland—not like some vagabonds who drag about God knows where while Orthodox people are fighting to the death, and then come down to reap where they haven’t sown.

Her heart was about to burst asunder.

Your bones will dance for joy in your coffin when they hear the impious Polack beasts throw your son into the flames, when your son screams under knives and scalding water.

“Do not be implacable. Forgive Danilo: he will not upset you anymore!”

Milk gruel was all the old father ate, and instead of vodka he sipped some black water from a flask he kept in his bosom.

But all is quiet. He must have imagined it. Only the muted rush of the Dnieper can be heard below, and on three sides, one after the other, the echo of momentarily awakened waves. The river is not mutinous.

Even if my husband were not faithful and dear to me, I still would not betray him, because God does not like perjured and faithless souls.

No, don’t call him my father! He’s no father to me. God is my
witness, I renounce him, I renounce my father!

It is not for sorcery, not for deeds of apostasy, that the sorcerer sits in the deep cellar. God will be the judge of that. He sits there for secret treachery, for conspiring with the enemies of the Russian Orthodox land to sell the Ukrainian people to the Catholics and burn Christian churches.

Perhaps he is repentant before the hour of his death; only his sins are not such as God will forgive.

Gloomy is the noise of the Dnieper. Melancholy settles into the heart. But does the sorcerer know this melancholy?

“Is there any punishment in the world that matches your sins? Wait for it; no one is going to intercede for you.”

You are innocent, Katerina, your soul will fly around God in paradise; but the soul of your apostate father will burn in eternal fire, and that fire will never go out; it will flare up more and more; no drop of dew falls, no wind breathes.

Not just non-lenten fare, but even fish will not pass my lips!

And if divine mercy does not lift from me at least a hundredth part of my sins, I will bury myself up to the neck in the ground, or immure myself in a stone wall; I will take neither food nor drink, and I will die; and I will give all my goods to the monks, so that they can serve panikhidas for me for forty days and forty nights.

The nobles make merry and boast, talking about their unheard-of deeds, mocking Orthodoxy, calling the Ukrainian people their slaves, twisting their mustaches imposingly and imposingly sprawling on the benches with their heads thrown back.

Only, the ksiądz is of the same ilk and does not even look like a Christian priest: he drinks and carouses with them and says shameful things with his infidel tongue.

Amidst the general bedlam you can hear them talking about Master Danilo’s farmstead beyond the Dnieper, about his beautiful wife.

The hetman sat on a black steed. A mace gleamed in his hand; around him his hired troops; on both sides stirred a red sea of Zaporozhtsy.

Ah, I’ll never fight like that again! It seems I’m not old yet, and my body is hale; yet the Cossack sword drops from my hand, I live with nothing to do and don’t know myself what I live for.

Like a bird he flashes here and there; he shouts and brandishes his Damascus saber, and slashes from the right shoulder and from the left.

Katerina clasped her hands and fell like a sheaf on the dead body.

You look and do not know if his majestic breadth is moving or not, and you fancy he is all molded of glass, as if a blue mirror roadway, of boundless width, of endless length, hovers and meanders over the green world.

Languidly pressing himself closer to the banks from the night's chill, he sends a silver ripple over his surface, and it flashes like the strip of a Damascus saber; and, deep blue, he sleeps again.

Rakish and daring he rides on his black steed, arms akimbo and hat cocked; and she runs weeping after him, clings to his stirrup, snatches at his bridle, and wrings her hands over him and dissolves in bitter tears.

He went in quietly, without creaking the door, placed a pot on the cloth-covered table, and with his long hands began throwing some unknown herbs into it; he took a mug made of some strange wood, scooped up some water, and began pouring it out, moving his lips and performing incantations.

The captain’s son seethed and blazed with wrath, hearing this talk.

Is it that heavy clouds dropped down from the sky and encumbered the earth with themselves?

There lives the not inconsiderable Hungarian people; they ride horses, wield sabers, and drink no worse than the Cossacks; and they do not stint in producing gold coins from their pockets to pay for harness and costly caftans.

What knight of inhuman stature gallops below the mountains, above the lakes, reflected with his gigantic horse in the still waters, his endless shadow flitting terribly over the mountains?

Sharp twigs scratch her white face and shoulders; the wind tousles her unbraided tresses; old leaves rustle under her feet—she pays no heed to anything.

Early in the morning a visitor arrived, of comely appearance, in a red jacket, and inquired about Master Danilo; he hears it all, wipes his tearful eyes with his sleeve, and heaves his shoulders.

“This man is a great sinner!” God said. “Ivan! I will not easily find a punishment for him; you choose how he shall be punished!” Ivan thought for a long time, devising the punishment...