Polacks have begun to show up again. Gorobets has sent to tell me not to be caught napping. He needn't worry, though; I'm not napping as it is. My lads cut down twelve big trees for barricades last night. The Pospolitstvo 6 will be treated to lead plums, and the gentlemen will dance under our knouts.'
'Does my father know about it?'
'Your father is a weight on my neck! I still can't figure him out. He must have committed many sins in foreign lands. What, indeed, can be the reason? He's lived here for nearly a month and has never once made merry like a good Cossack! He refused to drink mead! do you hear, Katerina, he refused to drink the mead I shook out of the Jews in Brest. Hey, lad!' cried Master Danilo. 'Run to the cellar, my boy, and fetch me some Jewish mead!… He doesn't even drink vodka! Confound it! I don't think, Mistress Katerina, that he believes in Christ the Lord either! Eh? What do you think?'
'God knows what you're saying, Master Danilo!'
'It's strange, Mistress!' he went on, taking the clay mug from the Cossack. 'Even the foul Catholics fall for vodka; only the Turks don't drink. Well, Stetsko, did you have a good sup of mead in the cellar?'
'Just a taste, Master!'
'Lies, you son of a bitch! look at the flies going for your mustache! I can see by your eyes that you downed half a bucket! Eh,
Cossacks! such wicked folk! ready for anything for a comrade, but he'll take care of the liquor all by himself. I haven't been drunk for a long time-eh, Mistress Katerina?'
'Long, you say! And the last time…'
'Don't worry, don't worry, I won't drink more than a mug! And here comes a Turkish abbot squeezing in the door!' he said through his teeth, seeing his father-in-law stooping to enter.
'What is this, my daughter!' the father said, taking off his hat and straightening his belt, from which hung a saber studded with wondrous stones. 'The sun is already high, and you have no dinner ready.'
'Dinner is ready, my father, we will serve it now! Get out the pot with the dumplings!' said Mistress Katerina to the old serving woman who was wiping the wooden bowls. 'Wait, I'd better take it out myself,' Katerina went on, 'and you call the lads.'
Everyone sat on the floor in a circle: the father facing the icon corner, Master Danilo to the left, Mistress Katerina to the right, and the ten trusty youths in blue and yellow jackets.
'I don't like these dumplings!' said the father, having eaten a little and putting down the spoon. 'They have no taste!'
'I know,' Master Danilo thought to himself, 'you prefer Jewish noodles.'
'Why, my father-in-law,' he went on aloud, 'do you say the dumplings have no taste? Are they poorly prepared? My Katerina makes such dumplings as even a hetman 7 rarely gets to eat. There's no need to be squeamish about them. It's Christian food! All God's saints and holy people ate dumplings.'
Not a word from the father. Master Danilo also fell silent.
A roast boar with cabbage and plums was served.
'I don't like pork,' said Katerina's father, raking up the cabbage with his spoon.
'Why would you not like pork?' said Danilo. 'Only Turks and Jews don't like pork.'
The father frowned even more sternly.
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.
After dinner, Danilo fell into a mighty hero's sleep and woke up only toward evening. He sat down and began writing letters to the Cossack army; and Mistress Katerina, sitting on the stove seat, rocked the cradle with her foot. Master Danilo sits and looks with his left eye at his writing and with his right eye out the window. And from the window the gleam of the distant hills and the Dnieper can be seen. Beyond the Dnieper, mountains show blue. Up above sparkles the now clear night sky. But it is not the distant sky or the blue forest that Master Danilo admires: he gazes at the jutting spit of land on which the old castle blackens. He fancied that light flashed in a narrow window of the castle. 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. He grumbles and murmurs like an old man: nothing pleases him; everything has changed around him; he is quietly at war with the hills, forests, and meadows on his banks, and carries his complaint against them to the Black Sea.
Now a boat blackened on the wide Dnieper, and again something as if flashed in the castle. Danilo whistled softly, and at his whistle the trusty lad came running.
'Quick, Stetsko, take your sharp saber and your musket and follow me.'
'You're going out?' asked Mistress Katerina.
'I'm going out, wife. I must look around everywhere to see if all is well.'
'But I'm afraid to stay by myself. I'm so sleepy. What if I have the same dream? I'm not even sure it was a dream-it was so lifelike.'
'The old woman will stay with you; and in the front hall and outside Cossacks are sleeping!'
'The old woman is already asleep, and I somehow do not trust the Cossacks. Listen, Master Danilo, lock me in my room and take the key with you. I won't be so afraid then. And let the Cossacks lie outside my door.'
'So be it!' said Danilo, wiping the dust from his musket and pouring powder into the pan.
The trusty Stetsko already stood dressed in full Cossack gear.
Danilo put on his astrakhan hat, closed the window, latched the door, locked it, and quietly went out through the yard, between his sleeping Cossacks, into the hills.
