sacks lying there.
The headman, after shaking the snow off the earflaps of his hat and drinking the glass of vodka that Solokha handed him, said that he had not gone to the deacon's on account of the blizzard, and seeing a light in her house, had stopped by, intending to spend the evening with her.
Before the headman finished speaking, there came a knocking at the door and the voice of the deacon.
'Hide me somewhere,' the headman whispered. 'I don't want to meet the deacon right now.'
Solokha thought for a long time where to hide such a stout guest; she finally chose the biggest sack of coal; she dumped the coal into a barrel, and the stalwart headman got into it, mustache, head, earflaps, and all.
The deacon came in, grunting and rubbing his hands, and said that none of his guests had come, and that he was heartily glad of this opportunity to sport a little at her place and the blizzard did not frighten him. Here he came closer to her, coughed, smiled, touched her bare, plump arm with his long fingers, and uttered with an air that showed both slyness and self-satisfaction:
'And what have you got here, magnificent Solokha?' And having said it, he jumped back slightly.
'How-what? An arm, Osip Nikiforovich!' replied Solokha.
'Hm! an arm! heh, heh, heh!' said the deacon, heartily pleased with his beginning, and he made a tour of the room.
'And what have you got here, dearest Solokha?' he uttered with the same air, having accosted her again and taken her lightly by the neck, and jumping back in the same way.
'As if you can't see, Osip Nikiforovich!' replied Solokha. 'A neck, and on that neck a necklace.'
'Hm! a necklace on the neck! heh, heh, heh!' And the deacon made another tour of the room, rubbing his hands.
'And what have you got here, incomparable Solokha?…' Who knows what the deacon would have touched this time with his long fingers, but suddenly there came a knocking at the door and the voice of the Cossack Choub.
'Ah, my God, an extraneous person!' the frightened deacon cried. 'What now, if someone of my station is found here?… It'll get back to Father Kondrat!…'
But the deacon's real apprehensions were of another sort: he feared still more that his better half might find out, who even without that had turned his thick braid into a very thin one with her terrible hand.
'For God's sake, virtuous Solokha,' he said, trembling all over. 'Your kindness, as it says in the Gospel of Luke, chapter thir-th- Knocking! By God, there's knocking! Oh, hide me somewhere!'
Solokha poured the coal from another sack into the barrel, and the none-too-voluminous deacon got in and sat down at the bottom, so that another half sack of coal could have been poured on top of him.
'Good evening, Solokha!' said Choub, coming in. 'Maybe you weren't expecting me, eh? it's true you weren't? maybe I'm interfering with you?…' Choub went on, putting a cheerful and significant look on his face, which let it be known beforehand that his clumsy head was toiling in preparation for cracking some sharp and ingenious joke. 'Maybe you've been having fun here with somebody?… Maybe you've already hidden somebody away, eh?' And, delighted with this last remark, Choub laughed, inwardly triumphant that he alone enjoyed Solokha's favors. 'Well, Solokha, now give me some vodka. I think my throat got frozen in this cursed cold. What a night before Christmas God has sent us! When it struck, Solokha, do you hear, when it struck-eh, my hands are quite numb, I can't unbutton my coat!-when the blizzard struck…'
'Open up!' a voice came from outside, accompanied by a shove at the door.
'Somebody's knocking,' Choub said, breaking off.
'Open up!' the cry came, louder than before.
'It's the blacksmith!' said Choub, clutching his earflaps. 'Listen, Solokha, put me wherever you like; not for anything in the world do I want to show myself to that cursed bastard, may the devil's son get himself blisters as big as haystacks under each eye!'
Solokha, frightened, rushed about in panic and, forgetting herself, gestured for Choub to get into the same sack where the deacon was already sitting. The poor deacon didn't even dare to show his pain by coughing or grunting when the heavy fellow sat almost on his head and stuck his frozen boots on both sides of his temples.
The blacksmith came in without saying a word or taking off his hat and all but collapsed on the bench. He was noticeably in very low spirits.
Just as Solokha was closing the door after him, someone knocked again. This was the Cossack Sverbyguz. This one could not be hidden in a sack, because it would have been impossible to find such a sack. He was more corpulent than the headman and taller than Choub's chum. And so Solokha led him out to the kitchen garden to hear all that he had to tell her.
The blacksmith looked distractedly around the corners of the room, catching from time to time the far- resounding songs of the carolers. He finally rested his eyes on the sacks: 'Why are these sacks lying here? They should have been taken out long ago. I've grown all befuddled on account of this stupid love. Tomorrow's a feast day, and there's all this trash lying around the house. I must take them to the smithy.'
Here the blacksmith crouched down by the huge sacks, tied them tightly, and was about to haul them onto his shoulders. But it was obvious that his thoughts were wandering God knows where, otherwise he would have heard Choub hiss when his hair got caught by the rope that tied the sack and the stalwart headman begin to hiccup quite audibly.
'Can it be that this worthless Oksana will never get out of my head?' the blacksmith said. 'I don't want to think about her, yet I do, and, as if on purpose, about nothing but her. What makes the thought come into my head against my will? Why the devil do these sacks seem heavier than before! There must be something in them besides coal. Fool that I am! I forgot that everything seems heavier to me now. Before, I used to be able to bend and unbend a copper coin or a horseshoe with one hand, and now I can't lift a sack of coal. Soon the wind will knock me down. No,' he cried, cheering up after a pause, 'what a woman I am! I won't let anybody laugh at me! Let it even be ten sacks, I'll lift them all.' And he briskly hauled sacks onto his shoulders that two strong men would have been unable to carry. 'This one, too,' he went on, picking up the small one, at the bottom of which the devil lay curled up. 'I think I put my tools in it.' Having said which, he left the house whistling the song:
