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The servant was barefooted; he was wearing a red shirt; a cap without a brim was stuck on the back of his head, and on a stick he was carrying Opanas’ new boots, which were dripping tar all over the dam.
“What a hurry he’s in!” thought the miller. “He’s got hold of the boots already. But never mind, all my hopes are centred on him now.”
As soon as the servant caught sight of a stranger on the dam he instantly thought that here was some thieving tramp waiting to steal his boots. So he stopped a few steps from Khapun and said:
“You’d better not come any nearer, I warn you! I won’t give them up!”
“What’s the matter with you? Come to your senses, good man! Haven’t I boots of my own? Look, they are better than yours!”
“Then why have you planted yourself there by night, like a crooked willow tree by a pond?”
“Well, you see, I wanted to ask you a question.”
“Splendid! A riddle is it, eh? Who told you I could answer riddles better than any one else?”
“Ha, ha, I’ve heard people say so!”
The soldier set down his boots, took out his tobacco-pouch, and began filling his pipe. Then he struck a light with a flint, and, blowing out a thick cloud of smoke from under his nose, said:
“Now, then, spout it out. What’s your riddle?”
“It isn’t exactly a riddle. I wanted to ask you who you think is the best man in this neighbourhood?”
“I am!”
“And why do you think that? Isn’t there any one here better than you are?”
“You ask me what I think. Very well, I answer that I won’t give the first place to any one.”
“You’re right. And the miller, what sort of a man is he?”
“The miller?”
The soldier blew out of his mouth a cloud of smoke that looked as large in the moonlight as the tail of a white horse. Then he eyed the devil askance and asked:
“You’re not a Customs officer, are you?”
“No!”
“And you’re not in the police—a detective, by any chance?”
“No, no, I tell you! What, a clever chap like you, and you can’t even see when a man’s just an ordinary fellow and when he isn’t?”
“Who said I couldn’t? I can see through and through you. I only asked that on the chance. And now, let me see; you asked me what sort of man the miller was?”
“Yes.”
“Well, he’s just about medium height, neither very large nor very small; a good average.”
“Oh, that’s not what I wanted to know!”
“Isn’t it? What more do you want me to tell you? Perhaps you would like to know where his warts are, if he has any?”
“You’re trying to throw dust in my eyes I see, but I’m in a hurry. Tell me in plain words: is the miller a good man or a bad one?”
The soldier blew another huge tail of smoke out of his mouth and said:
“What a hasty fellow you are! You like to eat, but you won’t chew.”
The devil opened his eyes wide, and the miller’s heart jumped for joy.
“What a tongue that boy has!” he thought. “And yet how often have I wished that it might drop off. But now it has come in useful. How he is roasting the devil!”
“You like to eat, but you won’t chew, I tell you!” the soldier repeated sternly. “You want me to tell you whether the miller is a good man or not. Every man’s good in my opinion. I’ve eaten bread from many a stove, friend. I wouldn’t even cough where you would die of suffocation. Do you think you’ve struck a fool in me?”
“Splendid! Splendid! Give it to him hard!” the miller said to himself, dancing with joy. “My name isn’t Philip the miller if the devil doesn’t look more foolish than a sheep before half an hour is over! I read so fast in church that no one can understand me, but he talks quietly, and yet just listen to what he is saying!”
And in fact the poor devil was scratching his head so hard that he was nearly knocking his hat off.
“Hold on, soldier!” he exclaimed. “You and I seem to run on and on and never get anywhere. We’re all tangled up.”
“I don’t know about you, but there’s no tangle I can’t get out of.”
“But look here; I asked you whether the miller was a good man or not, and see where you’ve led me!”
“Then let me ask you a question: is water good or not?”
“Water? What’s the matter with water?”
“But if there was kvass[J] about you would turn up your nose at water, wouldn’t you? Water would seem tasteless, then, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes, perhaps it would.”
“And if there was beer on the table you wouldn’t drink kvass, would you?”
“No, certainly not.”
“And if some one brought you a mug of gorelka you wouldn’t look at beer, eh?”
“You’re quite right.”
“Very well then, you see!”
The devil broke out into a sweat, and the tail hanging out from under his coat beat the ground till it actually raised a cloud of dust from the dam. The soldier threw the stick with his boots on it over his shoulder and was preparing to take his departure when the devil thought of a way he might catch him. He stepped a few steps to one side, and said:
“Well,—go along, go along! I shall wait here a little while longer in case Kharko the soldier should happen to come by.”
The soldier stopped.
“What do you want with him?”
“Nothing much, but they tell me that Kharko is a bright fellow and that he knows a thing or two! I thought at first you were he. But now I see I was wrong. One simply goes round and round in a circle with you, and can’t get going to save one’s life.”
The soldier set down his boots.
“Come on, ask me another question!”
“Oh, what’s the use?”
“Try!”
“Very well, then: tell me, whom did you like the best, Yankel the inn-keeper, or the miller?”
“Why didn’t you ask me that at once? I don’t like people that hunt for their beards alongside their noses. Some people would rather walk ten versts through the fields than go one verst by the straight road. But I’ll answer you straight to the point, as they say. Yankel kept one inn, but the miller keeps two.”
“Oh, hang him, he needn’t have said that!” thought the miller, miserably. “It would have been ever so much better if he hadn’t referred to it.”
But the soldier continued:
“When I worked for Yankel, I wore bast shoes, now I wear boots!”
“From where did you get them?”
“From where, eh? Our business is like a well with two buckets. One bucket fills and the other grows empty. One goes up and the other goes down. I used to wear bast shoes; now I wear boots. Opanas used to wear boots; now he goes barefoot because he’s a fool. The bucket comes to the wise man full and goes away empty. Now do you understand?”
The devil listened attentively, and said:
“Wait a minute! At last we seem to be getting somewhere!”
“But I’ve been telling you the same thing all along. If you call Yankel kvass, then the miller is beer; but if you were to give me a glass of good vodka, I should let the beer alone.”
The tip of the devil’s tail skipped about so madly on the sand that Kharko noticed it at last. He blew a puff of smoke right into the devil’s face, and put his foot on the tail as if by accident. The devil jumped, and yelped like a great dog. Both he and Kharko took fright; they opened their eyes wide, and stood for half a minute staring at one another without saying a word.
At last Kharko whistled in that insolent way of his, and said:
“Ah, ha! ah, ha! So that’s the game, is it?”
“And what did you think?” asked the devil.
“Now I know the kind of a queer bird you are!”
“I’m what you see I am.”
“Then you’re the one who—last year—?”
“Of course.”
“And you’re—after him?”
“You’re right. And what do you think of my plan?”
Kharko stretched his limbs, blew a puff of smoke, and answered:
“Take him! I won’t cry over him. I’m a poor man. It’s none of my business. I’ll sit in the inn smoking my pipe till a third one comes along.”
Once more the devil roared with laughter, but the soldier only slung his boots across his back and walked rapidly away. As he passed the sycamore tree the miller heard him muttering to himself:
“So that’s the game, is it? He’s carried off one and now he’s come back for the other. Well, it’s none of my business. When the devil got the Jew the miller got the goods. Now he’s come for the miller and the goods will be mine. A soldier is his own master. Now that I’ve the business in my own hands, let’s see if I can’t keep it. I’ll not be poor Kharko any longer, but Mr. Khariton Tregubov. Only I’m not a fool. No temptation on earth will ever take me on to this dam at night.”
And with that he began climbing the hill.
The miller stared from side to side. Who would help him now? Not a soul was in sight. Darkness was falling; a frog was croaking sleepily in the mud; a bittern was booming angrily in the reeds. The edge of the moon was peeping over the woods as if asking: “What will become of Philip the miller now?”
It looked at him, winked, and set behind the trees.
The devil stood on the dam holding his sides with laughter. His shouts of merriment shook the floury dust out of every cranny in the old mill; all the spirits of the forest and pond awoke and came flitting toward him, some floating like shadows out of the wood, some hanging like filmy clouds over the water. The pond stirred, streaks of swirling white vapour rose from it, and ripples ran in circles across its surface. The miller gave it one look, and his blood ran cold: a blue face with dull, staring eyes was glaring up at him out of the water, its long whiskers waving like the antennæ of a water-beetle. Who could it be but his uncle, rising from the pond and coming straight toward the sycamore tree?
Yankel the Jew had long since crept silently out on to the dam, picked up the clothes which the devil had discarded, slipped across to the sycamore tree, and hastily tied up his bundle. There was no more mention of losses now; any man would have been afraid to mention them, I can tell you! Losses be hanged! Yankel hoisted his bundle on to his back and shuffled quietly away, following the others along the path that led from the mill to the village.
The miller made a rush for his mill; once there, at least he would be able to lock himself in or else wake his workman! But he had hardly quitted his tree before the devil jumped after him. Philip dashed into the mill, slammed the door, rushed into his room, hurriedly lit a light, and fell down on the floor screaming with might and main, just like—what do you think?—the Jews in their synagogue!
And the devil circled over the mill, stuck his inquisitive nose in at the window, and couldn’t make out how to get at the tempting morsel before him.
Suddenly, bang! Something dropped to the floor with a thump as if a huge cat had jumped into the room. That confounded devil had come down the chimney! The fiend sprang to his feet, and next instant the miller felt him sitting on his back, digging his claws into his flesh.
What could he do?
Suddenly, another bang! Darkness fell, and the devil was dragging the miller through a black, narrow hole. The miller smelt clay, clouds of soot rose about him, and all at once he saw lying below him the chimney and the roof of the mill, growing smaller and smaller every second, as if they and the dam and the sycamore trees and the pond were falling into a bottomless pit. And there lay the sky, reflected upside-down in the calm mill-pond spread out below them as smooth as a platter, and in it the peaceful stars were twinkling as they had always twinkled before. And the miller saw flying across those dark blue depths a form that looked first like a hawk, and then like a crow, and then like a sparrow, and then like a large fly.
“He is taking me ever so high!” thought the miller. “There go your profits for you, Philipko, and your inns, and all your fine show! Is there no Christian soul who will call to him: Drop it, it is mine?”
But Christian soul there was none! Below him slept the mill, and out of the pond the monstrous face of his uncle alone was glaring at him with glassy eyes, laughing to itself and waving its whiskers.
Farther on the Jew was still crawling up the hill, stooping under his heavy white bundle. Half way up the ascent stood Kharko, shading his eyes with his hand and gazing up at the sky.
The scattered band of girls had overtaken Opanas and his oxen. They were flying along like lunatics and Opanas was staring straight up at the sky as he lay in his cart. Though his heart was kind, his eyes were blind with vodka, and his tongue was as heavy as lead. There was no one, no one, who would cry: Drop it, it is mine!
And there lay the village. There was the tavern, closed for the night; there stood the sleeping cottages, and there lay the gardens. There, too, stood the tall poplar tree and the widow’s little khata. Old Prisia and her daughter were sitting on a bench at the door, weeping and embracing one another. And why were they weeping? Was it because next day the miller was going to drive them out of their native hut?
The miller’s heart leaped. At least these two might give him a kind thought! He plucked up courage and shouted:
“Don’t cry, Galya; don’t cry, little sweetheart! I’ll forgive you all your debts and the interest, too! Oh, I’m in trouble, in worse trouble than you are. The Evil One is carrying me away as a spider carries a little fly.”
Tender and sensitive is the heart of a girl! It did not seem possible that Galya could have heard the miller’s cry from such a great distance, but she shuddered nevertheless, and raised her dark, weeping eyes to heaven.
“Farewell, farewell, my beautiful black eyes,” the miller sighed, and at that instant he saw the girl’s hands clutch her breast and heard her rend the air with a piercing scream:
“Drop it, foul fiend! Drop it, it is mine!”
The sound tore at the devil’s ears like the mighty swing of a brandished chain. His wings fluttered feebly, his claws relaxed their hold, and Philip floated down like a feather, turning from side to side.
The devil dropped after him like a stone. But as soon as he reached him and grabbed him afresh, Galya shouted again:
“Drop it, accursed one, it is mine!”
The devil dropped the miller, and once more the poor man floated downward. So it happened three times, while the marsh lying between the mill and the village spread ever wider and wider beneath them.
Splash! The miller fell into the soft mud with such a bump that the bog bounced as if it had been on springs, and threw the miller ten feet into the air. He fell down again, jumped up, and took to his heels helter-skelter as fast as his legs could carry him. As he ran he screamed at the top of his lungs, feeling every second that the devil was going to grab him.
He reached the first hut on the outskirts of the village, flew the hedge at a bound, and found himself in the middle of the widow’s cottage. Here he came to his senses for the first time.
“Well, I am in your cottage, thank God!” he said.
Just think of it, good people, what a prank he had played! There he was early in the morning, before sunrise, before even the cows had been driven out to pasture, bareheaded, barefooted, in rags, plunging into the hut of two unmarried women, a widow and a young girl! Yes, and the fact that he was hatless was a small matter; it was lucky indeed he hadn’t lost something else on the way; if he had, he would have disgraced the poor women forever! And on top of it all what did he say? “Thank God, I am in your cottage!”
The old woman could only wave her arms, but Galya jumped up in her nightgown from a bench, threw on a dress, and cried to the miller:
“What are you doing here, you wicked man? Are you so drunk that you can’t find your own hut, and so come rushing into ours, hey?”
But the miller stood in front of her looking at her with gentle if slightly staring eyes, and said:
“Come on, hit me as hard as you can!”
And she hit him once: bang!
“Hit me again!”
So she hit him again.
“That’s right. Do you want to hit me any more?”
So she hit him a third time. Then, when she saw that not only did he not mind, but stood there looking at her with gentle eyes, she threw up her hands and burst into tears.
“Oi, misery me, poor orphan that I am, who will come to my help? Oi, what a man this is! Isn’t it enough for him that he has deceived a young girl like me, and that he wants to turn Turk, and has made every one gossip about me, and disgraced me before the whole village? Look at him, look at him, good people! I have hit him three times and he won’t even turn away. Oi, what can I do with a man like him, tell me, somebody, do!”
But the miller asked:
“Are you going to hit me again or not? Tell me truly. If you aren’t, I’m going to sit down on that bench, because I’m tired.”
Galya’s hands were approaching the miller again, but the old woman guessed there was something out of the ordinary about the business, and said to her daughter:
“Wait a bit, child! Why do you go on slapping the man’s neck without even stopping to ask him a question? Can’t you see that the lad’s a little bit off his head? Tell me, neighbour, where did you come from so suddenly, and what do you mean by saying: Thank God I am in your cottage, when you know you oughtn’t to be here at all?”
The miller rubbed his eyes and said:
“Tell me the honest truth, Auntie, am I asleep? Am I still alive? Has one night or one year passed since yesterday evening? And did I come here from the mill or did I drop from the sky?”
“Tut, tut, man! Cross yourself with your left hand! What nonsense you’re talking. You must have been dreaming!”
“I don’t know, good mother, I don’t know. I can’t make head or tail of it myself.”
He was about to sit down on a bench, when he caught sight through the window of Yankel the inn-keeper, crawling along with a huge bundle on his back. The miller jumped up, pointed toward the window, and asked the two women:
“Who is that walking along there?”
“Why, that’s our Yankel!”
“And what is he carrying?”
“A bundle from the city.”
“Then why do you say I’ve been dreaming? Don’t you see that the Jew has come back? I saw him at the mill a moment ago, carrying that very same bundle.”
“And why shouldn’t he have come back?”
“Because the devil carried him off last year. Khapun, you know.”
Well, in a word, there was a great deal of amazement when the miller told of all that had happened to him. And in the meanwhile a crowd was beginning to collect in the road in front of the cottage; the people looked in at the window, and began making slanderous comments.
“Look at that!” they said. “There’s a nice state of affairs! The miller comes tearing across the fields without a hat, without boots, all ragged and torn, and runs straight into the widow’s cottage, and there he sits with them now!”
“Hey! Tell us, good man, whom have you come to see all dressed up like that? Is it Old Prisia, or young Galya?”
You will agree, I am sure, that no one can allow a poor girl to be gossiped about like that. The miller was simply obliged to marry her. But Philip has confessed to me many a time himself that he had always loved the widow’s Galya, and that after the night when she rescued him from the foul fiend’s clutches, she grew so dear to him that he wouldn’t have let himself be driven away from her with a stick.
They are living at the mill now, and already have several children. The miller has forgotten his inn and no longer lends money at interest. And whenever a voice in his heart whispers to him to wish Yankel the Jew out of the village to the devil, he only makes a contemptuous gesture.
“And the inn?” He used sometimes to ask people after his adventure. “Will it still remain?”
“Of course the inn will remain. What should become of it?”
“But who will keep it? Perhaps you are thinking of doing it yourself?”
“Yes, perhaps I am.”
And at that the miller would only whistle.