Sorochinskaya Fair | Page 1 | Online library
Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol
SOROCHINSKAYA FAIR
I
It’s so boring to live in a hut. Oh, take me out of the house, There’s a lot of thunder, there’s thunder, There’s all the wonders dancing around, There’s boys walking around! From an old legend.
How delightful, how luxurious a summer day in Little Russia! How languidly hot are those hours when midday shines in silence and heat, and the blue, immeasurable ocean, bent over the earth like a voluptuous dome, seems to have fallen asleep, completely drowned in bliss, hugging and squeezing the beautiful one in its airy embrace! There's not a cloud on it. No speech in the field. Everything seemed to have died; only above, in the heavenly depths, a lark trembles, and silver songs fly along the airy steps to the loving land, and occasionally the cry of a seagull or the ringing voice of a quail echoes in the steppe. Lazily and thoughtlessly, as if walking without a goal, the cloud-covered oaks stand, and the dazzling blows of the sun's rays light up whole picturesque masses of leaves, casting over others a shadow dark as night, along which gold flecks only in a strong wind. Emeralds, topazes, and jahonts of ethereal insects rain down over the colorful vegetable gardens, overshadowed by stately sunflowers. Gray haystacks and golden sheaves of bread are encamped in the field and wander through its immensity. Wide branches of cherries, plums, apple trees, and pears bent over from the weight of fruit; the sky, its pure mirror - the river in green, proudly raised frames... how full of voluptuousness and bliss the Little Russian summer is!
One of the days of hot August shone with such luxury one thousand eight hundred... eight hundred... Yes, thirty years ago, when the road, about ten miles to the town of Sorochinets, was seething with people hurrying from all the surrounding and distant farmsteads to the fair. In the morning, there was still an endless line of Chumaks with salt and fish. The mountains of pots, wrapped in hay, moved slowly, seemingly bored by their confinement and darkness; in some places only some brightly painted bowl or makitra showed boastfully from a fence perched high on a cart and attracted the tender glances of admirers of luxury. Many passers-by looked with envy at the tall potter, the owner of these jewels, who walked with slow steps behind his wares, carefully wrapping his clay dandies and coquettes in hated hay.
Lonely to the side was dragged by exhausted oxen a cart piled with sacks, hemp, linen and various household luggage, behind which its owner wandered in a clean linen shirt and soiled linen trousers. With a lazy hand he wiped away the sweat that was rolling down from his dark face and even dripping from his long mustache, powdered by that inexorable hairdresser who, without being called, appears to both the beauty and the ugly, and has been forcibly powdering the entire human race for several thousand years. Next to him walked a mare tied to a cart, whose humble appearance revealed her advanced years. Many people we met, and especially young guys, grabbed their hats when they caught up with our man. However, it was not his gray mustache and his unimportant gait that forced him to do this; you only had to raise your eyes a little upward to see the reason for such respect: sitting on the cart was a pretty daughter with a round face, with black eyebrows, even arches rising above her light brown eyes, with carelessly smiling pink lips, with red and blue ribbons tied on her head, which , together with long braids and a bunch of wild flowers, a rich crown rested on her charming head. Everything seemed to occupy her; everything was wonderful and new to her... and her pretty eyes constantly ran from one object to another. How not to get scattered! first time at the fair! An eighteen-year-old girl is at the fair for the first time!... But not a single one of the passers-by knew what it took for her to beg her father to take her with her, who would have been glad with his soul to do this before, if not for the evil stepmother, who had learned to keep him in hands as deftly as he held the reins of his old mare, who was now dragging herself for sale after a long service. A restless wife... but we forgot that she too was sitting at the height of the cart in an elegant green woolen jacket, on which, as if on ermine fur, there were red tails sewn on, in a rich plakhta, colorful as a chessboard, and in a chintz a colored eyeliner that gave some special importance to her red, plump face, across which something so unpleasant, so wild slipped, that everyone immediately hurried to transfer their anxious gaze to the cheerful face of their daughter.
Psel had already begun to open to the eyes of our travelers; From a distance there was already a breath of coolness, which seemed more noticeable after the languid, destructive heat. Through the dark and light green leaves of sedge, birch and poplar carelessly scattered across the meadow, fiery sparks, dressed in cold, sparkled, and the beautiful river brilliantly exposed its silver chest, onto which the green curls of the trees luxuriously fell. Willful, as she is in those ecstatic hours when the faithful mirror so enviably captures her forehead, full of pride and dazzling brilliance, her lily-colored shoulders and marble neck, overshadowed by a dark wave that has fallen from her fair-haired head, when with contempt she throws away only her jewelry to replace them others, and there is no end to her whims - she changes her surroundings almost every year, chooses a new path for herself and surrounds herself with new, varied landscapes. Rows of mills lifted their wide waves onto heavy wheels and threw them powerfully, breaking them into splashes, sprinkling dust and filling the surrounding area with noise. The cart with the passengers we knew drove onto the bridge at that time, and the river in all its beauty and grandeur, like solid glass, spread out in front of them. The sky, green and blue forests, people, carts with pots, mills - everything overturned, stood and walked upside down, without falling into the blue, beautiful abyss. Our beauty became lost in thought, looking at the splendor of the view, and even forgot to peel her sunflowers, which she had been regularly doing throughout the entire journey, when suddenly the words “Oh, what a maiden!” struck her ears. Looking around, she saw a crowd of boys standing on the bridge, one of whom, dressed more dapper than the others, in a white scroll and a gray hat of Reshetilovsky smushkas, propped up on his sides, valiantly glanced at the passers-by. The beauty could not help but notice his tanned, but full of pleasant face and fiery eyes, which seemed to strive to see right through her, and lowered her eyes at the thought that perhaps the spoken word belonged to him. “Nice maiden! - continued the boy in the white scroll, not taking his eyes off her. “I would give my entire household to kiss her.” But the devil sits in front!” Laughter arose from all sides; but the dressed-up cohabitant of the slowly advancing husband did not much appreciate such a greeting: her red cheeks turned fiery, and the crackle of choice words rained down on the head of the riotous young man:
- May you choke, you worthless barge hauler! May your father get hit in the head with a pot! May he slip on the ice, damned Antichrist! May the devil burn his beard in the next world!
- Look how he swears! - said the boy, widening his eyes at her, as if puzzled by such a strong volley of unexpected greetings, - and her tongue, a hundred-year-old witch, would not hurt to utter these words.
- A hundred years old! - picked up the elderly beauty. - Wicked man! go wash yourself first! Worthless tomboy! I haven’t seen your mother, but I know it’s rubbish! and the father is rubbish! and your aunt is rubbish! Centennial! that he still has milk on his lips... - Then the cart began to descend from the bridge, and it was no longer possible to hear the last words; but the boy didn’t seem to want to end it with this: without thinking for long, he grabbed a lump of dirt and threw it after her. The blow was more successful than one might have expected: the entire new calico otchik was splashed with mud, and the laughter of the riotous rakes doubled with renewed vigor. The portly dandy seethed with anger; but the cart had driven quite far at that time, and her revenge turned on her innocent stepdaughter and her slow partner, who, having long been accustomed to such phenomena, maintained stubborn silence and calmly accepted the rebellious speeches of her angry wife. However, despite this, her tireless tongue crackled and dangled in her mouth until they arrived in the suburbs to an old friend and godfather, the Cossack Tsybula. The meeting with the godfathers, who had not seen each other for a long time, temporarily drove this unpleasant incident out of our heads, forcing our travelers to talk about the fair and rest a little after the long journey.
