Korzh saw the sacks and-went all soft: "Petrus is this and that and the other! And haven't I always loved him? hasn't he been like my own son to me?" And the old coot went off into such fancies that the fellow was moved to tears. Pidorka began telling him how Ivas had been stolen by some passing Gypsies. But Petro couldn't even remember his face: so addled he was by that cursed devilry! There was no point in delaying. The Pole got a fig under his nose, and the wedding was cooked up: they baked a lot of cakes, sewed a lot of napkins and kerchiefs, rolled out a barrel of vodka; the young couple was seated on the table; the round loaf was cut; they struck up the bandore, cymbals, pipes and mandolins-and the fun began…

Weddings in the old days were no comparison with ours. My grandfather's aunt used to tell us-oh, ho, ho! How girls in festive headdresses of yellow, blue, and pink stripes trimmed with gold braid, in fine shirts stitched with red silk and embroidered with little silver flowers, in Morocco boots with high, iron-shod heels, capered about the room as smoothly as peahens and swishing like the wind; how young women in tall headdresses, the upper part made all of gold brocade, with a small cutout behind and a golden kerchief peeking from it, with two little peaks of the finest black astrakhan, one pointing backward and the other forward, in blue jackets of the best silk with red flaps, stepped out imposingly one by one, arms akimbo, and rhythmically stamped away at the gopak. 11 How young lads in tall Cossack hats and fine flannel blouses with silver-embroidered belts, pipes in their teeth, bobbed and pranced before them, cutting all sorts of capers. Korzh himself couldn't hold back, looking at the young ones and remembering bygone times. With a bandore in his hands, puffing on his pipe and humming at the same time, the old fellow put a glass on his head and, to the loud shouts of the revelers, broke into a squatting dance. What people won't think up when they're tipsy! They used to dress in disguises-my God, they no longer looked like human beings! No comparison with the costumes at our weddings nowadays. How is it now? They just copy the Gypsies or the Muscovites. No, it used to be one would dress up as a Jew and another as a devil, and first they'd kiss each other and then grab each other's topknots… God help us! you had to hold your sides from laughter. They'd get dressed up in Turkish or Tartar costumes: everything on them blazes like fire… And when they start fooling and pulling tricks… well, saints alive! A funny thing happened with my grandfather's aunt, who was at this wedding: she was dressed then in a loose Tartar dress and went around offering glasses to the guests. The devil put one of them up to splashing some vodka on her from behind. Another-no flies on him either-struck a fire straight away… the flame blazed up, the poor aunt got frightened and started pulling her dress off in front of everybody… Noise, laughter, turmoil arose, like at a street fair. In short, the old people remember no merrier wedding ever.

Pidorka and Petrus started living like lord and lady. Everything in abundance, everything shining… However, good people shook their heads slightly, looking at their life. "No good can come from the devil," everybody murmured with one voice. "Where did he get his wealth, if not from the seducer of Orthodox people? Where could such a heap of gold come from? Why, suddenly, on the very day he got rich, did Basavriuk vanish into thin air?" Now, just tell me people were making it up! Because, in fact, before a month was out, nobody could recognize Petrus. What happened to him and why, God knows. He sits in one place and won't say a word to anyone. He keeps thinking and thinking, as if he wants to remember something. When Pidorka manages to make him talk about something, he seems to forget it all and starts to speak, and even almost cheers up; then he glances inadvertently at the sacks and cries out: "Wait, wait, I forgot!" and falls to thinking again, and again strains to remember something. Once in a while, after sitting in the same place for a long time, he fancies it's all just about to come back to him… and then it all goes again. He fancies he's sitting in the tavern; they bring him vodka; the vodka burns him; the vodkas disgusting to him. Somebody comes up, slaps him on the shoulder… but then it's as if everything gets misty before him. Sweat streams down his face, and he sits back down, exhausted.

What didn't Pidorka do: she consulted wizards, she poured out a flurry and boiled a bellyache*-nothing helped. So the summer went by. Many Cossacks had reaped their hay and harvested their crops; many Cossacks, the more riotous sort, had set out on campaign. Flocks of ducks still crowded our marshes, but the bitterns were long gone. The steppes were turning red. Shocks of wheat stood here and there like bright Cossack hats strewn over the fields. On the road you would meet carts piled with kindling and firewood. The ground turned harder and in places was gripped by frost. Snow had already begun to spatter from the sky, and the branches of the trees were decked with hoarfrost as if with hare's fur. On a clear, frosty day, the red-breasted bullfinch, like a foppish Polish gentleman, was already strolling over the snowdrifts pecking at seeds, and children with enormous sticks were sending wooden whirligigs over the ice, while their fathers calmly stayed stretched on the stove, stepping out every once in a while, a lighted pipe in their teeth, to say a word or two about the good Orthodox frost, or to get some fresh air and thresh some grain that had long been sitting in the front hall. At last the snow began to melt, and the pike broke the ice with its tail, and Petro was still the same, and the further it went, the grimmer he became. As though chained down, he sat in the middle of the room with the sacks of gold at his feet. He grew wild, shaggy, frightening; his mind was fixed on one thing, he kept straining to remember something; and he was angry and vexed that he could not remember it. Often he would get up wildly from where he sat, move his arms, fix his eyes on something as if wishing to catch it; his lips move as if they want to utter some long-forgotten word-and stop motionless… Fury comes over him; like a demented man, he gnaws and bites his hands and tears out tufts of his hair in vexation, until he grows calm, drops down as if oblivious, and then again tries to remember, and again fury, *A flurry is poured out in cases when we want to find out the cause of a fear; melted tin or wax is dropped into water, and whatever shape it takes is what has frightened the sick person; after that the fear goes away. We boil a bellyache for nausea and stomachache. A piece of hemp is set alight and thrown into a mug, which is then turned upside down in a bowl of water and placed on the sick person's stomach; then, after some whispered spell, he's given a spoonful of the same water to drink. (Author's note.) and again torment… What a plague from God! Life was no longer life for Pidorka. At first she dreaded staying alone in the house with him, but later the poor thing grew accustomed to her misfortune. But the former Pidorka was no longer recognizable. No color, no smile: worn, wasted, she cried her bright eyes out. Once someone evidently took pity on her and advised her to go to the sorceress who lived in Bear's Gully, who, as rumor had it, could heal any illness in the world. She decided to try this last remedy; one word led to another, and she talked the old hag into coming home with her. This was in the evening, just on the Baptist's eve. Petro lay oblivious on the bench and did not notice the new visitor at all. And then gradually he began to raise himself and stare. Suddenly he trembled all over, as if on the scaffold; his hair rose in a shock… and he laughed such a laugh that fear cut into Pidorka's heart. "I remember, I remember!" he cried with horrible merriment and, swinging an ax, flung it with all his might at the hag. The ax sank three inches into the oak door. The hag vanished and a child of about seven, in a white shirt, with covered head, stood in the middle of the room… The sheet flew off. "Ivas!" Pidorka cried and rushed to him; but the phantom became all bloody from head to foot and lit up the whole room with a red glow… Frightened, she ran out to the front hall; then, recovering a little, she wanted to go back and help him-in vain! The door slammed shut so tightly behind her that it was impossible to open it. People came running; they began to knock; they forced the door: not a soul. The whole room was filled with smoke, and in the middle only, where Petrus had been standing, was a heap of ashes from which smoke was still rising in places. They rushed to the sacks: instead of gold coins there was nothing but broken shards. Eyes popping, mouths gaping, not daring even to move their mustaches, the Cossacks stood as if rooted to the spot. Such fright came over them on account of this marvel.