The Fiend.[18]
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Ralston, William Ralston Shedden
In a certain country there lived an old couple who had a daughter called Marusia (Mary). In their village it was customary to celebrate the feast of St. Andrew the First-Called (November 30). The girls used to assemble in some cottage, bake pampushki,[19] and enjoy themselves for a whole week, or even longer. Well, the girls met together once when this festival arrived, and brewed and baked what was wanted. In the evening came the lads with the music, bringing liquor with them, and dancing and revelry commenced. All the girls danced well, but Marusia the best of all. After a while there came into the cottage such a fine fellow! Marry, come up! regular blood and milk, and smartly and richly dressed.
“Hail, fair maidens!” says he.
“Hail, good youth!” say they.
“You’re merry-making?”
“Be so good as to join us.”
Thereupon he pulled out of his pocket a purse full of gold, ordered liquor, nuts and gingerbread. All was ready in a trice, and he began treating the lads and lasses, giving each a share. Then he took to dancing. Why, it was a treat to look at him! Marusia struck his fancy more than anyone else; so he stuck close to her. The time came for going home.
“Marusia,” says he, “come and see me off.”
She went to see him off.
“Marusia, sweetheart!” says he, “would you like me to marry you?”
“If you like to marry me, I will gladly marry you. But where do you come from?”
“From such and such a place. I’m clerk at a merchant’s.”
Then they bade each other farewell and separated. When Marusia got home, her mother asked her:
“Well, daughter! have you enjoyed yourself?”
“Yes, mother. But I’ve something pleasant to tell you besides. There was a lad there from the neighborhood, good-looking and with lots of money, and he promised to marry me.”
“Harkye Marusia! When you go to where the girls are to-morrow, take a ball of thread with you, make a noose in it, and, when you are going to see him off, throw it over one of his buttons, and quietly unroll the ball; then, by means of the thread, you will be able to find out where he lives.”
Next day Marusia went to the gathering, and took a ball of thread with her. The youth came again.
“Good evening, Marusia!” said he.
“Good evening!” said she.
Games began and dances. Even more than before did he stick to Marusia, not a step would he budge from her. The time came for going home.
“Come and see me off, Marusia!” says the stranger.
She went out into the street, and while she was taking leave of him she quietly dropped the noose over one of his buttons. He went his way, but she remained where she was, unrolling the ball. When she had unrolled the whole of it, she ran after the thread to find out where her betrothed lived. At first the thread followed the road, then it stretched across hedges and ditches, and led Marusia towards the church and right up to the porch. Marusia tried the door; it was locked. She went round the church, found a ladder, set it against a window, and climbed up it to see what was going on inside. Having got into the church, she looked—and saw her betrothed standing beside a grave and devouring a dead body—for a corpse had been left for that night in the church.
She wanted to get down the ladder quietly, but her fright prevented her from taking proper heed, and she made a little noise. Then she ran home—almost beside herself, fancying all the time she was being pursued. She was all but dead before she got in. Next morning her mother asked her:
“Well, Marusia! did you see the youth?”
“I saw him, mother,” she replied. But what else she had seen she did not tell.
In the morning Marusia was sitting, considering whether she would go to the gathering or not.
“Go,” said her mother. “Amuse yourself while you’re young!”
So she went to the gathering; the Fiend[20] was there already. Games, fun, dancing, began anew; the girls knew nothing of what had happened. When they began to separate and go homewards:
“Come, Marusia!” says the Evil One, “see me off.”
She was afraid, and didn’t stir. Then all the other girls opened out upon her.
“What are you thinking about? Have you grown so bashful, forsooth? Go and see the good lad off.”
There was no help for it. Out she went, not knowing what would come of it. As soon as they got into the streets he began questioning her:
“You were in the church last night?”
“No.”
“And saw what I was doing there?”
“No.”
“Very well! To-morrow your father will die!”
Having said this, he disappeared.
Marusia returned home grave and sad. When she woke up in the morning, her father lay dead!
They wept and wailed over him, and laid him in the coffin. In the evening her mother went off to the priest’s, but Marusia remained at home. At last she became afraid of being alone in the house. “Suppose I go to my friends,” she thought. So she went, and found the Evil One there.
“Good evening, Marusia! why arn’t you merry?”