Nikolay gogol evening on a farm near Dikanka. Nikolai Gogol Evenings on a farm near Dikanka stories published by a beekeeper ore pank Evenings on a farm near Dikanka collection

06.03.2022

A person who would not know the works of N.V. Gogol in our country (and in the CIS) will be very difficult to find. And is it worth it? One of the writer's most popular masterpieces is Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka. Even those who haven't read the book have probably seen the films or musicals based on the stories in this edition. We suggest that you study the extremely abbreviated retelling of each work. “Evenings on a farm near Dikanka” (summary) - to your attention.

The secret of the success of the works: what is it?

Of course, each person has their own tastes and preferences. But, oddly enough, this collection of stories is liked by both the older generation and the youth. Why it happens? Most likely, due to the fact that Gogol managed to combine mystical plots, humor and adventures, and also love stories in one book. Actually, this is a win-win recipe for success! So, "Evenings on a farm near Dikanka." The summary will allow you to understand whether it is worth tuning in to read the book in its entirety!

Note that this book is a collection of two parts. Therefore, we will try to describe in a few sentences what each of the stories is about.

"Evenings on a farm near Dikanka": a summary of the first part

In the story about the fair in Sorochintsy, the reader can have fun from the heart, enjoying the adventures of Cherevik, his charming daughter Parasi, her admirer Grytsk, the enterprising Gypsy and the absurd Khivri, wife of Cherevik. We can understand that love can work miracles, but immoderate drinking and adultery in the end are worthy of punishment!

“Evening on the eve of Ivan Kupala” is a story filled with mysticism and some kind of gloomy romance. The plot revolves around Petrus, who is in love with Pedorka, whose prosperous father is not particularly eager to give his daughter as a wife to a poor man. But here, as a sin, to help the unlucky lover is taken Of course, not for nothing. The devil demands a fern flower for his help. Having committed the murder, the young man obtains what Satan wanted from him. But it does not bring him happiness. Petrus himself perishes, and his gold turns into skulls...

"May Night, or the Drowned Woman" is a story about how pure love, courage and resourcefulness overcome injustice, even committed many years ago.

From the story "The Missing Letter" we learn that even devils can be defeated in a card game. To do this, you need a little - with sincere faith, cross the playing cards. True, it is not a fact that after this your wife will not start dancing every year, completely unwilling to do so.

"Evenings on a farm near Dikanka": a summary of the second part

And we also learn that it is quite possible to saddle the Devil and fly on it, and courage and enterprise will help to conquer even the most impregnable beauty! I wonder if this only happens on Christmas Eve?

"Terrible Revenge" - a story that is truly scary! Still, after all, how can you guess in advance that your wife's father is a sorcerer? By the way, the story also mentions quite real historical figures!

Also in the collection there is a story about how the ardent desire of an elderly relative (aunt) to arrange the personal life of her nephew (Ivan Fedorovich Shponka) can significantly change a monotonous and measured existence! Is it only for the better?

"Enchanted Place" This story tells about what adventures you can get into, even being in advanced years. Eh, do not mess with evil spirits!

Good luck and happy reading!

“What is this unseen: “Evenings on a farm near Dikanka”? What is "Evenings"? And threw some beekeeper into the light! God bless! a little more they stripped the geese for feathers and exhausted the rags on paper! There are still few people, of every rank and rabble, who have stained their fingers in ink! The hunt also pulled the beekeeper to drag himself after the others! Indeed, there is so much printed paper that you will not soon think of something to wrap in it.

Heard, heard my prophetic all these speeches for another month! That is, I say that our brother, a farmer, stick his nose out of his backwoods into the big world - my fathers! It's just like sometimes you go into the chambers of a great pan: everyone will surround you and go fool around. Still nothing, even the highest servility, no, some ragged boy, look - rubbish that digs in the backyard, and he will stick; and begin to stamp their feet on all sides. “Where, where, why? go, man, go!..” I’ll tell you… But what can I say! It’s easier for me to go twice a year to Mirgorod, where for five years now neither the district court nor the venerable priest has seen me, than to appear in this great world. And it seemed - do not cry, give the answer.

With us, my dear readers, don’t be told in anger (you may be angry that the beekeeper speaks to you easily, as if to some kind of matchmaker or godfather), - we, on farms, have long been: as soon as when the work in the field is over, the peasant will climb on the stove to rest for the whole winter, and our brother will hide his bees in a dark cellar, when you will no longer see cranes in the sky, nor pears on a tree - then, only evening, probably already somewhere at the end a light glimmers on the street, laughter and songs are heard from afar, a balalaika strums, and sometimes a violin, voice, noise ... This is our evening parties! They, if you please, they look like your balls; just can not say that at all. If you go to balls, it is precisely in order to turn your legs and yawn in your hand; and we will gather in one hut a crowd of girls not at all for the ball, with a spindle, with combs; and at first they seem to get down to business: the spindles rustle, songs flow, and each does not raise an eye to the side; but as soon as the lads with the violinist rush into the hut, a cry will rise, a shawl will be started, dances will go and such things will start up that it’s impossible to tell.

But it’s best when everyone gets together in a tight bunch and starts to guess riddles or just chatter. My God! What will they not tell you! Where do they not dig up the old ones! What fears will not inflict! But nowhere, perhaps, so many wonders were told as at the evenings at the beekeeper Rudy Panka. For what the laity called me Rudy Pank - by God, I don’t know how to say. And my hair seems to be more gray than red now. But among us, if you please do not be angry, there is such a custom: as people give someone a nickname, then it will remain forever and ever. It used to happen that on the eve of the holiday, good people would gather to visit, in the beekeeper's shack, they would sit down at the table - and then I only ask you to listen. And then to say that the people were not at all a mere dozen, not some peasant peasants. Yes, maybe someone else, even taller than the beekeeper, would be honored by a visit. For example, do you know the deacon of the Dikan church, Foma Grigoryevich? Eh, head! What stories he knew how to let go! You will find two of them in this book. He never wore the mottled dressing-gown of the kind you see on many country deacons; but go to him even on weekdays, he will always receive you in a robe made of fine cloth, the color of a chilled potato jelly, for which he paid almost six rubles per arshin in Poltava. From his boots, with us no one will say in the whole farm that the smell of tar was heard; but everyone knows that he cleaned them with the best lard, which, I think, some peasant would gladly put in his porridge. No one will also say that he ever wiped his nose with the hem of his robe, as other people of his rank do; but he took out of his bosom a neatly folded white handkerchief, embroidered along all the edges with red thread, and, having corrected what was necessary, he folded it again, as usual, in a twelfth share and hid it in his bosom. And one of the guests ... Well, he was already such a panic that he could at least now be dressed up as assessors or subcommittees. It used to happen that he would put his finger in front of him and, looking at the end of it, would go to tell - pretentiously and cunningly, as in printed books! Sometimes you listen, you listen, and thought will attack. Nothing, for the life of me, you don't understand. Where did he get those words from? Foma Grigoryevich once wove a glorious saying about this for him: he told him how one schoolboy, who had studied with some clerk to read and write, came to his father and became such a Latin man that he even forgot our Orthodox language. All words turn on mustache His shovel is a shovel, the woman is a babus. So, it happened once, they went with their father to the field. The Latin man saw the rake and asked his father: “What do you call it, father?” Yes, and he stepped, gaping his mouth, with his foot on the teeth. He did not have time to gather an answer, as the pen, waving, rose and - grab him on the forehead. "Damned rake! - the schoolboy shouted, clutching his forehead with his hand and jumping up a yard, - how the devil would they have pushed their father off the bridge, they are fighting painfully! So that's how! Remembered the name, my dear! Such a saying did not please the intricate narrator. Without saying a word, he got up, spread his legs in the middle of the room, bent his head a little forward, thrust his hand into the back pocket of his pea caftan, pulled out a round lacquered snuffbox, flicked his finger on the painted face of some Busurman general, and, seizing a considerable a portion of tobacco, pounded with ashes and lovage leaves, brought it to his nose with a yoke and pulled out the whole bunch with his nose in the air, without even touching his thumb - and still not a word; Yes, when I reached into another pocket and took out a blue checkered paper handkerchief, then I only grumbled to myself almost a saying: “Do not throw beads in front of pigs” ... “Now there will be a quarrel,” I thought, noticing that Foma had fingers Grigoryevich and developed to give a muzzle. Fortunately, my old woman thought of putting a hot knish with butter on the table. Everyone got to work. The hand of Foma Grigoryevich, instead of showing a chish, stretched out to the knish, and, as usual, they began to praise the mistress of the hostess. We also had one narrator; but he (there would be no need to remember him at night) dug up such terrible stories that his hair went up his head. I deliberately didn't include them here. You will also scare good people so that the beekeeper, God forgive me, like hell, everyone will be afraid. Let it be better, as soon as I live, God willing, until the new year and publish another book, then it will be possible to intimidate people from the other world and the divas that were created in the old days in our Orthodox side. Among them, perhaps, you will find the fables of the beekeeper himself, which he told his grandchildren. If only they would listen and read, and I, perhaps - too lazy to rummage through the damned one - will have enough for ten such books.

Yes, that was it, and I forgot the most important thing: as soon as you, gentlemen, go to me, then take the path straight along the high road to Dikanka. I deliberately put it on the first page so that they would get to our farm as soon as possible. About Dikanka, I think you have heard enough. And then to say that there the house is cleaner than some beekeeper's hut. And there is nothing to say about the garden: in your Petersburg, you will probably not find such a thing. Arriving in Dikanka, ask only the first boy you meet, grazing geese in a soiled shirt: “Where does the beekeeper Rudy Panko live?” - "And there!" - he will say, pointing his finger, and, if you like, will lead you to the very farm. However, I ask you not to put your hands back too much and, as they say, to feint, because the roads through our farms are not as smooth as in front of your mansions. In the third year, Foma Grigorievich, coming from Dikanka, did visit the ravine with his new taratay and his bay mare, despite the fact that he ruled and that, over his eyes, he sometimes put on still purchased ones.

@eugene.msk.su
“N.V. Gogol. Collected works in seven volumes. Volume 1. Evenings on a farm near Dikanka”: Fiction; Moscow; 1976
annotation
Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka (Part One - 1831, Part Two - 1832) is the immortal masterpiece of the great Russian writer Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol (1809-1852).
Enthusiastically received by his contemporaries (for example, A.S. Pushkin wrote: “I just read “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka.” They amazed me. Here is real gaiety, sincere, unconstrained, without affectation, without stiffness. And in places, what poetry. What sensuality! All this is so unusual in our literature that I still have not come to my senses ... "), this book remains one of the writer's favorite works by readers today.
Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol
Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka

Stories published by the beekeeper Rudy Pank

Part one
Foreword
“What kind of unseen is this: “Evenings on a farm near Dikanka”? What is "Evenings"? And some beekeeper threw it into the light! God bless! a little more they stripped the geese for feathers and exhausted the rags on paper! There are still few people, of every rank and rabble, who have smeared their fingers in ink! The hunt also pulled the beekeeper to drag himself after the others! Indeed, there is so much printed paper that you can’t think of something to wrap in it.”
Listened, heard my prophetic all these speeches for another month! That is, I say that our brother, a farmer, stick his nose out of his backwoods into the big world - my fathers! It's just like sometimes you go into the chambers of a great pan: everyone will surround you and go fool around. Still nothing, even the highest servility, no, some ragged boy, look - rubbish that digs in the backyard, and he will stick; and begin to stamp their feet on all sides. “Where, where, why? go, man, go!..” I’ll tell you… But what can I say! It’s easier for me to go twice a year to Mirgorod, where for five years now neither the district court nor the venerable priest has seen me, than to appear in this great world. And it seemed - do not cry, give the answer.
With us, my dear readers, don’t be told in anger (you may be angry that the beekeeper tells you easily, as if to some kind of matchmaker or godfather), - we, on farms, have long been: as soon as when the work in the field is over, the peasant will climb on the stove to rest for the whole winter, and our brother will hide his bees in a dark cellar, when you will no longer see cranes in the sky, nor pears on a tree - then, only evening, probably already somewhere at the end a light glimmers on the street, laughter and songs are heard from afar, a balalaika strums, and sometimes a violin, talk, noise ... This is our evening party! They, if you please, they look like your balls; just can not say that at all. If you go to balls, it is precisely in order to turn your legs and yawn in your hand; and we will gather in one hut a crowd of girls not at all for the ball, with a spindle, with combs; and at first they seem to get down to business: the spindles rustle, songs flow, and each does not raise an eye to the side; but as soon as the lads with the violinist rush into the hut, a cry will rise, a shawl will be started, dances will go and such things will start up that it’s impossible to tell.
But it’s best when everyone gets together in a tight bunch and starts to guess riddles or just chatter. My God! What will they not tell you! Where do they not dig up the old ones! What fears will not inflict! But nowhere, perhaps, so many wonders were told as at the evenings at the beekeeper Rudy Panka. For what the laity called me Rudy Pank - by God, I don’t know how to say. And my hair seems to be more gray than red now. But among us, if you please do not be angry, there is such a custom: as people give someone a nickname, then it will remain forever and ever. It used to happen that on the eve of the holiday, good people would gather to visit, in the beekeeper's shack, they would sit down at the table - and then I only ask you to listen. And then to say that the people were not at all a mere dozen, not some peasant peasants. Yes, maybe someone else, even taller than the beekeeper, would be honored by a visit. For example, do you know the deacon of the Dikan church, Foma Grigoryevich? Eh, head! What stories he knew how to let go! You will find two of them in this book. He never wore the mottled dressing-gown of the kind you see on many country deacons; but go to him even on weekdays, he will always receive you in a robe made of fine cloth, the color of a chilled potato jelly, for which he paid almost six rubles per arshin in Poltava. From his boots, with us no one will say in the whole farm that the smell of tar was heard; but everyone knows that he cleaned them with the best lard, which, I think, some peasant would gladly put in his porridge. No one will also say that he ever wiped his nose with the hem of his robe, as other people of his rank do; but he took out of his bosom a neatly folded white handkerchief, embroidered along all the edges with red thread, and, having corrected what was necessary, he folded it again, as usual, in a twelfth share and hid it in his bosom. And one of the guests ... Well, he was already such a panic that he could at least now be dressed up as assessors or subcommittees. It used to happen that he would put his finger in front of him and, looking at the end of it, would go to tell - pretentiously and cunningly, as in printed books! Sometimes you listen, you listen, and thought will attack. Nothing, for the life of me, you don't understand. Where did he get those words from? Foma Grigoryevich once wove a glorious saying about this for him: he told him how one schoolboy, who had studied with some clerk to read and write, came to his father and became such a Latin man that he even forgot our Orthodox language. All words turn into a mustache. His shovel is a shovel, the woman is a babus. So, it happened once, they went with their father to the field. The Latin man saw the rake and asked his father: “What do you call it, father? Yes, and he stepped, gaping his mouth, with his foot on the teeth. He did not have time to gather an answer, as the pen, waving, rose and - grab him on the forehead. "Damned rake! - the schoolboy shouted, clutching his forehead with his hand and jumping up a yard, - how the devil would they have pushed their father off the bridge, they are fighting painfully! So that's how! Remembered the name, my dear! Such a saying did not please the intricate narrator. Without saying a word, he got up, spread his legs in the middle of the room, bent his head a little forward, thrust his hand into the back pocket of his pea caftan, pulled out a round lacquered snuffbox, flicked his finger on the painted face of some Busurman general, and, seizing a considerable a portion of tobacco, pounded with ashes and lovage leaves, brought it to his nose with a yoke and pulled out the whole bunch with his nose in the air, without even touching his thumb - and still not a word; Yes, when I reached into another pocket and took out a blue checkered paper handkerchief, then I only grumbled to myself almost a saying: “Do not throw beads in front of pigs” ... “Now there will be a quarrel,” I thought, noticing that Foma had fingers Grigoryevich and developed to give a muzzle. Fortunately, my old woman thought of putting a hot knish with butter on the table. Everyone got to work. The hand of Foma Grigoryevich, instead of showing a chish, stretched out to the knish, and, as usual, they began to praise the mistress of the hostess. We also had one narrator; but he (there would be no need to remember him at night) dug up such terrible stories that his hair went up his head. I deliberately didn't include them here. You will also scare good people so that the beekeeper, God forgive me, like hell, everyone will be afraid. Let it be better, as soon as I live, God willing, until the new year and publish another book, then it will be possible to intimidate people from the other world and the divas that were created in the old days in our Orthodox side. Among them, perhaps, you will find the fables of the beekeeper himself, which he told his grandchildren. If only they would listen and read, and I, perhaps - too lazy to rummage through the damned one - will have enough for ten such books.
Yes, that was it, and I forgot the most important thing: as soon as you, gentlemen, go to me, then take the path straight along the high road to Dikanka. I deliberately put it on the first page so that they would get to our farm as soon as possible. About Dikanka, I think you have heard enough. And then to say that there the house is cleaner than some beekeeper's hut. And there is nothing to say about the garden: in your Petersburg, you will probably not find such a thing. Arriving in Dikanka, ask only the first boy you meet, grazing geese in a soiled shirt: “Where does the beekeeper Rudy Panko live?” - "And there!" - he will say, pointing his finger, and, if you like, will lead you to the very farm. However, I ask you not to put your hands back too much and, as they say, to feint, because the roads through our farms are not as smooth as in front of your mansions. In the third year, Foma Grigorievich, coming from Dikanka, did visit the ravine with his new taratay and his bay mare, despite the fact that he ruled and that, over his eyes, he sometimes put on still purchased ones.
But already, as you wish to visit, we will serve melons such as you, perhaps, have not eaten since your birth; and honey, and I swear, you won’t find better on the farms. Imagine that as you bring in the honeycomb, the spirit will go throughout the room, you can’t imagine what it is: pure, like a tear, or expensive crystal, which happens in earrings. And what kind of pies will my old woman feed! What pies, if you only knew: sugar, perfect sugar! And the oil flows like that on the lips when you start eating. Just think, right: what are these women not craftswomen! Have you ever drunk, gentlemen, pear kvass with blackthorn berries or varenukha with raisins and plums? Or have you sometimes eat putru with milk? My God, what food there are in the world! If you start eating, you will eat, and it’s full. Sweetness indescribable! Last year ... But why am I really talking? .. Come only, come as soon as possible; but we will feed you in such a way that you will tell both the counter and the cross.
Pasichnik Rudy Panko.
Just in case, so that they do not remember me with an unkind word, I write out here, in alphabetical order, those words that are not clear to everyone in this book.
Bandu "ra, instrument, type of guitar.
Bato "g, whip.
Pain "chka, scrofula.
Bo "ndar, cooper.
Bu "flare, round pretzel, ram.
Storm "k, beets.
Buhane "ts, small bread.
Winery, distillery.
Galu "shki, dumplings.
Golodra "bets, poor man, bean.
Gopa "k, Little Russian dance.
Dove, Little Russian dance.
Di "why, girl.
Divcha "ta, girls.
Dija, tub.
Dribu "shki, small braids.
Domovi "on, the coffin.
Du "la, shish.
Duka "t, a kind of medal, is worn around the neck.
Zna "choir, knowledgeable, fortune-teller.
Zhi "nka, wife.
Zhupa "n, a kind of caftan.
Kagane "ts, a kind of lamp.
Kleki, convex planks, of which the barrel is composed.
Knish, a kind of baked bread.
Ko "bza, a musical instrument.
Como "ra, barn.
Bark "glare, headdress.
Kuntu "sh, top ancient dress.
Cow "th, wedding bread.
Ku "hol, earthenware mug.
Bald didko, brownie, demon.
Lu "Lka, pipe.
Maki "tra, a pot in which the poppy is rubbed.
Makogo "n, poppy pestle.
Malach "y, whip.
Mi "ska, wooden plate.
Youth, married woman.
Na "ymyt, a hired worker.
On "ymychka, a hired worker.
Osele "dets, a long tuft of hair on the head, wrapped around the ear.
Eyes "pok, a kind of cap.
Pampu "shki, a dough dish.
Pa "sichnik, beekeeper.
Pa "cutting, guy.
Pla "hta, women's underwear.
Pe "clo, hell.
Pere "purchase, trader.
Perepolo "x, fright.
Pe'siks, Jewish curls.
Tell me, barn.
Polutabe "nek, silk fabric.
Pu "trya, food, a kind of porridge.
Rushni "k, wiper.
Svi "tka, a kind of semi-caftan.
Sindya "chki, narrow ribbons.
Sweeties, donuts.
Its "lok, the crossbar under the ceiling.
Slivya "nka, pouring from plums.
Smu "shki, mutton fur.
So "nyashnitsa, pain in the abdomen.
Sopi "lka, a kind of flute.
Stus "n, fist.
Stri "chki, ribbons.
Troycha "weave, triple lash.
Chloe, boy.
Khu "tor, a small village.
Hu "stka, handkerchief.
Qibu "la, onion.
Chumaki", wagonmen traveling to the Crimea for salt and fish.
Chupri "on, forelock, a long tuft of hair on the head.
Shi "shka, a small bread made at weddings.
Yushka, sauce, slurry.
Yatka, a kind of tent or tent.

Sorochinskaya Fair
I
It's boring for me to live in a hut.
Oh, take me from home
De rich to thunder, thunder,
De goptsyuyut all divki,
De walk couples!
From an old legend

How delightful, how sumptuous is a summer day in Little Russia! How painfully hot are those hours when noon shines in silence and heat, and the immeasurable blue ocean, bent over the earth with a voluptuous dome, seems to have fallen asleep, all sunk in bliss, embracing and squeezing the beautiful in its airy embrace! There are no clouds on it. There is no speech in the field. Everything seems to have died; only above, in the depths of heaven, a lark trembles, and silver songs fly along the airy steps to the earth in love, and occasionally the cry of a seagull or the sonorous voice of a quail is heard in the steppe. Lazily and thoughtlessly, as if walking without a goal, the cloudy oaks stand, and the dazzling strokes of the sun's rays light up entire picturesque masses of leaves, throwing a shadow dark as night over the others, over which gold spurts only with a strong wind. Emeralds, topazes, yahontas of ethereal insects are pouring over colorful gardens, overshadowed by stately sunflowers. Gray haystacks and golden sheaves of bread are encamped in the field and roam through its immensity. Wide branches of cherries, plums, apple trees, pears bent over from the weight of the fruits; the sky, its pure mirror - a river in green, proudly raised frames ... how full of voluptuousness and bliss is the Little Russian summer!
One day of hot August shone with such luxury eighteen hundred ... eight hundred ... Yes, thirty years ago, when the road, ten versts from the town of Sorochinets, was seething with people rushing from all surrounding and distant farms to the fair. In the morning there was still an endless line of chumaks with salt and fish. Mountains of pots wrapped in hay moved slowly, as if bored by their confinement and darkness; in some places only some brightly painted bowl or makitra poked out boastfully from a wattle fence highly perched on a wagon and attracted the touching glances of lovers of luxury. Many passers-by looked with envy at the tall potter, the owner of these jewels, who slowly walked behind his goods, carefully wrapping his clay dandies and coquettes in hated hay.
Lonely aside trudged on exhausted oxen a wagon piled with sacks, hemp, linen and various household luggage, after which he wandered, in a clean linen shirt and soiled linen trousers, his owner. With a lazy hand, he wiped the sweat that rolled in a hail from his swarthy face and even dripped from his long mustache, powdered by that inexorable hairdresser who, without a call, comes to both the beautiful and the ugly and forcibly powders the entire human race for several thousand years. Beside him walked a mare tied to a wagon, whose humble appearance betrayed her advanced years. Many oncoming ones, and especially young lads, took hold of their hats as they caught up with our peasant. However, it was not his gray mustache and his important step that forced him to do this; one had only to look up a little to see the reason for such deference: on the cart sat a pretty daughter with a round face, with black eyebrows rising in even arches above her light brown eyes, with pink lips smiling nonchalantly, with red and blue ribbons tied around her head, which , together with long braids and a bunch of wild flowers, rested on her charming head with a rich crown. Everything seemed to occupy her; everything was wonderful, new to her ... and her pretty eyes were constantly running from one object to another. How not to get lost! first time at the fair! A girl at eighteen for the first time at a fair! .. But not one of the passers-by and travelers knew what it cost her to beg her father to take with her, who would have been glad to do it with her soul before, if not for the evil stepmother, who learned to hold him in his hands as deftly as he does the reins of his old mare, dragged, for a long service, now for sale. The restless wife ... but we forgot that she, too, was immediately sitting at the height of the wagon, in an elegant green woolen jacket, on which, as if on ermine fur, tails were sewn, only red, in a rich plank, mottled like a chessboard, and in a colored calico, which gave some special importance to her red, full face, over which something so unpleasant, so wild slipped through, that everyone immediately hurried to transfer their anxious glance to the cheerful little face of their daughter.
The eyes of our travelers have already begun to open Psyol; from afar there was already a breath of coolness, which seemed more perceptible after the languishing, destructive heat. Through the dark and light green leaves of sapwoods, birches and poplars carelessly scattered across the meadow, fiery sparks, dressed in cold, sparkled, and the beautiful river brilliantly bared its silver chest, on which green curls of trees fell magnificently. Wayward, as she is in those delightful hours, when the faithful mirror so enviably contains her full of pride and dazzling brilliance, her brow, lilac shoulders and marble neck, overshadowed by a dark wave that has fallen from her blond head, when with contempt she throws only jewelry to replace them others, and there is no end to her whims - she changed her surroundings almost every year, choosing a new path for herself and surrounding herself with new, diverse landscapes. Rows of mills lifted their wide waves onto heavy wheels and powerfully threw them, breaking them into spray, sprinkling dust and making noise around the surroundings. At that time, a cart with passengers we knew rode onto the bridge, and the river, in all its beauty and grandeur, like solid glass, stretched out before them. The sky, green and blue forests, people, carts with pots, mills - everything overturned, stood and walked upside down, without falling into the beautiful blue abyss. Our beauty fell into thought, looking at the luxury of the view, and forgot even to peel her sunflower, which she was regularly engaged in all the way, when suddenly the words: “Aw, damsel!” struck her ear. Glancing around, she saw a crowd of lads standing on the bridge, one of whom, dressed more splendidly than the others, in a white coat and in a gray hat of Retilov's coats, leaning on his hips, looked valiantly at the passers-by. The beauty could not fail to notice his tanned, but full of pleasantness, 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.
- Glorious girl! continued the lad in the white coat, without taking his eyes off her. - I would give all my household to kiss her. And here is the devil sitting in front!
Laughter rose from all sides; but such a greeting did not seem too much to the discharged concubine of her slowly speaking husband: her red cheeks turned into fiery ones, and the crackle of choice words rained down on the head of the riotous lad
- So that you choke, worthless barge hauler! So that your father is hit with a pot in the head! May he slip on the ice, damned Antichrist! May the devil burn his beard in the next world!
- Look, how he swears! said the lad, bulging his eyes at her, as if puzzled by such a strong volley of unexpected greetings, “and her tongue, a hundred-year-old witch, will not ache to pronounce these words.
- Centennial! said the old beauty. - Wicked! go wash up ahead! Bad tomboy! I haven't seen your mother, but I know it's rubbish! and the father is rubbish! and the aunt is rubbish! Centennial! that he still has milk on his lips...
Here the wagon began to descend from the bridge, and it was already impossible to hear the last words; but the lad did not seem to want to end with this: without thinking for a long time, he grabbed a lump of dirt and threw it after her. The blow was more successful than one could have imagined: the entire new calico ochipok was spattered with mud, and the laughter of the reckless rake doubled with renewed vigor. The portly dandy seethed with anger; but the wagon had driven quite far at that time, and her revenge turned on her innocent stepdaughter and slow cohabitant, who, having long been accustomed to such phenomena, maintained stubborn silence and calmly accepted the rebellious speeches of an angry wife. However, despite this, her tireless tongue crackled and dangled in her mouth until they arrived in the suburbs to an old acquaintance and godfather, the Cossack Tsybulya. The meeting with godfathers, who had not been seen for a long time, drove this unpleasant incident out of their heads for a while, forcing our travelers to talk about the fair and rest a little after a long journey.

II
What, my God, my Lord! what is dumb at that fair! Wheels, sklo, yogot, tyutyun, remin, tsibulya, all sorts of kramari ... so, if you want to be in the gut it was thirty rubles, then you would not have bought the fairs.
From the Little Russian comedy

You must have heard a distant waterfall rolling somewhere, when the alarmed surroundings are full of hum and a chaos of wonderful obscure sounds rushes before you like a whirlwind. Isn't it true, isn't it the very same feelings that will instantly seize you in the whirlwind of a rural fair, when the whole people coalesces into one huge monster and moves with its whole body in the square and through the narrow streets, shouting, cackling, thundering? Noise, abuse, lowing, bleating, roaring - everything merges into one discordant dialect. Bullocks, sacks, hay, gypsies, pots, women, gingerbread, hats - everything is bright, colorful, discordant; rushing about in heaps and scurrying about before your eyes. Discordant speeches drown each other, and not a single word will be snatched out, will not be saved from this flood; not a single cry is spoken clearly. Only the clapping on the hands of the merchants is heard from all sides of the fair. The cart breaks, the iron rings, the boards thrown to the ground rattle, and the dizzy head is perplexed where to turn. Our visiting peasant with his black-browed daughter had long been jostling among the people. Approached one cart, felt another, applied to prices; and meanwhile his thoughts tossed and turned unceasingly about ten sacks of wheat and an old mare he had brought for sale. It was evident from the face of his daughter that she was not too pleased to rub herself near the wagons with flour and wheat. She would like to go where red ribbons, earrings, pewter, copper crosses and ducats are elegantly hung under the linen yatkas. But even here, however, she found many objects for herself to observe: she was amused to the extreme, as the gypsies and peasants beat each other on the hands, screaming out in pain themselves; how a drunken Jew gave a woman jelly; how quarreled buyouts were exchanged with abuse and crayfish; like a Muscovite, stroking his goat's beard with one hand, with the other ... But then she felt someone pull her by the embroidered sleeve of her shirt. She looked around - and a lad in a white coat, with bright eyes, stood in front of her. Her veins trembled, and her heart beat as never before, with no joy, no grief: it seemed strange and loving to her, and she herself could not explain what was happening to her.
“Don’t be afraid, dear, don’t be afraid! - he said to her in an undertone, taking her hand, - I will not say anything bad to you!
“Maybe it’s true that you won’t say anything bad,” the beauty thought to herself, “only it’s wonderful to me ... right, it’s crafty! You yourself, it seems, know that this is not good ... but you don’t have the strength to take his hand from him.
The peasant looked around and wanted to say something to his daughter, but the word "wheat" was heard to the side. This magic word forced him at the same moment to join the two loudly talking merchants, and nothing was able to entertain the attention that was riveted to them. Here is what the merchants said about wheat.

III
Chi bachish, what kind of guy?
There are a few of them in the retinue.
Sivuhu so, mov braga, damnit!
Kotlyarevsky, "Aeneid"

- So you think, countryman, that our wheat will go badly? - said a man who looked like a visiting tradesman, an inhabitant of some town, in motley, tar-stained and greasy trousers, to another, in a blue, in places already patched, scroll and with a huge bump on his forehead.
- Yes, there is nothing to think about here; I'm ready to throw a noose on myself and hang out on this tree, like a sausage before Christmas on a hut, if we sell at least one measure.
- Who are you, fellow countryman, fooling? After all, there is no import at all, except for ours, ”the man in the motley trousers objected.
“Yes, tell yourself what you want,” our beauty’s father thought to himself, not missing a single word from the conversation of the two merchants, “and I have ten bags in reserve.”
- That's just it, that if where the devilry is mixed up, then expect as much good as from a hungry Muscovite, - the man with a bump on his forehead said significantly.
- What the hell? - picked up the man in the motley trousers.
Have you heard what people say? he went on, with a bump on his forehead, turning his gloomy eyes askance at him.
- Well!
- Well, then, well! The assessor, so that he would not have to wipe his lips after the master's plum brandy, set aside a cursed place for the fair, where, even if you crack, you won’t let down a single grain. Do you see that old, ruined barn that stands over there under the mountain? (Here the curious father of our beauty moved even closer and seemed to turn into attention.) In that shed every now and then there are devilish tricks; and not a single fair in this place was held without misfortune. Yesterday the volost clerk passed late in the evening, just looking - a pig's snout was exposed through the dormer window and grunted so that the frost hit his skin; and wait for the red scroll to appear again!
What is this red scroll?
Here our attentive listener's hair stood on end; he turned back in fear and saw that his daughter and the lad were standing calmly, embracing each other and singing some love tales to each other, forgetting about all the scrolls in the world. This dispelled his fear and forced him to return to his former carelessness.
- Ege-ge-ge, countryman! Yes, you are a master, as I see, hugging! And on the fourth day after the wedding, I learned to hug my late Khveska, and even then thanks to my godfather: being a friend, I already advised.
The lad noticed at the same hour that his dear father was not too far away, and in his thoughts he began to draw up a plan, as it were, to persuade him in his favor.
“You’re truly a kind person, you don’t know me, but I recognized you right away.
“Maybe he did.”
- If you want, and the name, and the nickname, and all sorts of things I will tell you: your name is Solopy Cherevik.
- So, Solopy Cherevik.
“Look carefully, don’t you recognize me?”
- No, I do not know. Do not be said in anger, for a century I had a chance to see enough of all sorts of faces that the devil will remember them all!
"It's a pity you don't remember Golopupenkov's son!"
- Are you like Okhrimov's son?
- And who is it? Is there only one bald didko, if not him.
Here the friends grabbed their hats, and kissing began; our son Golopupenkov, however, lost no time in deciding to lay siege to his new acquaintance at that very moment.
- Well, Solopy, as you can see, your daughter and I fell in love with each other so that at least we could live together forever.
“Well, Paraska,” said Cherevik, turning and laughing to his daughter, “perhaps, in fact, so that, as they say, they’ll be together and… that they’ll graze on the same grass!” What? deal? Come on, newborn son-in-law, let's magarych!
And all three found themselves in a well-known fair restaurant - under a yoke near a Jewess, dotted with a numerous flotilla of salt, bottles, flasks of all kinds and ages.
- Oh, grab! for that I love it! - said Cherevik, having a little walk and seeing how his betrothed son-in-law poured out a mug the size of half a quart and, without frowning in the least, drank it to the bottom, then grabbing it to smithereens. - What do you say, Paraska? What a groom I got you! Look, look how he gallantly pulls the foam! ..
And, chuckling and swaying, he walked with her to his wagon, and our lad went along the rows with red goods, in which there were merchants even from Gadyach and Mirgorod - two famous cities of the Poltava province - to look out for a better wooden cradle in a smart copper frame, a flowery handkerchief over a red field and a hat for wedding gifts to father-in-law and everyone who should.

IV
Though people don’t have one,
That if zhinci, bachish, tee,
So please please...
Kotlyarevsky

- Well, zhinka! and I found a groom for my daughter!
- That's just before now, to look for suitors! Fool, fool! You, right, are destined to stay like that! Where did you see, where did you hear that a good man was now running after suitors? You would think better how to sell wheat from your hands; the groom must be good too! I think the most ragged of all the hungry.
- Eh, no matter how, you should have looked what kind of a lad there is! One scroll is worth more than your green jacket and red boots. And how important it blows fuselage! .. Damn me with you if I saw in my lifetime that a lad pulled out half a quart in spirit without grimacing.
- Well, so: if he is a drunkard and a tramp, so are his suits. I bet if it's not the same tomboy who followed us on the bridge. It is a pity that he has not come across to me yet: I would have let him know.
- Well, Khivrya, at least the same one; why is he a tomboy?
- E! what a tomboy he is! Oh, you brainless head! hear! what a tomboy he is! Where did you hide your foolish eyes when we passed the mills; if only they had inflicted dishonor on his wife right there, in front of his tobacco-stained nose, he would not have needed anything.
- That's all, however, I do not see anything bad in him; guy anywhere! Only except that for a moment he sealed your image with manure.
- Ege! Yes, you, as I see it, do not let me utter a word! What does it mean? When did this happen to you? True, I already managed to sip without selling anything ...
Here our Cherevik himself noticed that he was talking too much, and in an instant covered his head with his hands, assuming, no doubt, that the angry concubine would not be slow to cling to his hair with her conjugal claws.
“To hell with it! Here's your wedding! he thought to himself, evading his strongly advancing wife. - We will have to refuse a good person for nothing, my God, why attack us sinners like that! and there is so much rubbish in the world, and you have also spawned a zhinok!

V
Don't be shy, little larva,
Still green;
Do not scoff, little goat,
You are young!
Little Russian. song

The lad in a white coat, sitting by his wagon, gazed distractedly at the people muffled around him. The weary sun was leaving the world, calmly passing through its noon and morning; and the fading day blushed captivatingly and brightly. The tops of the white tents and yaks shone dazzlingly, overshadowed by some barely perceptible fiery pink light. The windows of the heaped windows were on fire; the green flasks and cups on the tables at the taverns turned into fiery ones; mountains of melons, watermelons and pumpkins seemed to be poured from gold and dark copper. The conversation noticeably became less frequent and muffled, and the tired tongues of outbidders, peasants and gypsies turned more lazily and more slowly. Somewhere, a light began to sparkle, and the fragrant steam from the boiled dumplings wafted through the quiet streets.
- What did you get upset about, Gritsko? - shouted a tall, tanned gypsy, hitting our lad on the shoulder. - Well, give the oxen for twenty!
- You would have all oxen and oxen. Your tribe all would be self-interest only. Hook and deceive a good person.
- Ugh, devil! yes, you were taken in earnest. Is it not out of vexation that he imposed a bride on himself?
- No, it's not my way: I keep my word; what you have done, that will be forever. But the grunt Cherevik has no conscience, apparently, even half a shelyag: he said, and back ... Well, there’s nothing to blame him, he’s a stump, and it’s full. All these are the things of the old witch, whom we today with the boys on the bridge cursed on all sides! Eh, if I were a king or a great pan, I would be the first to hang all those fools who allow themselves to be saddled by women ...
“Will you sell twenty oxen if we force Cherevik to give us Paraska?”
Gritsko looked at him in bewilderment. In the swarthy features of the gypsy there was something malicious, caustic, base and at the same time arrogant: the person who looked at him was already ready to admit that great virtues boil in this wonderful soul, but for which there is only one reward on earth - the gallows. The mouth completely sank between the nose and the sharp chin, eternally overshadowed by a caustic smile, small but lively eyes, like fire, and the lightning bolts of enterprises and intentions constantly changing on the face - all this seemed to require a special, just as strange for itself costume, which it was then on it. This dark brown caftan, the touch of which, it seemed, would turn it into dust; long black hair that fell over her shoulders in clumps; shoes worn on bare sunburned feet - all this seemed to have grown to him and made up his nature.
- Not for twenty, but for fifteen I'll give, if you don't lie! - answered the lad, not taking his eyes off him.
- For fifteen? OK! Look, do not forget: for fifteen! Here's a titmouse as a deposit!
“Well, what if you lie?”
- I'll lie - your deposit!
- Okay! Well, let's move on!
- Let's!

VI
From bid, Roman ide, from now
just plant me bebekhiv,
ta and you, Pan Homo, not without dashing
will.
From Little Russian. comedy

- Over here, Afanasy Ivanovich! Here the wattle fence is lower, raise your leg, but don’t be afraid: my fool went all night with a godfather under the carts, so that the Muscovites wouldn’t pick up anything in case.
So the formidable cohabitant of Cherevika affectionately encouraged the priest who was cowardly clinging near the fence, who soon climbed onto the wattle fence and stood for a long time in bewilderment on it, like a long, terrible ghost, measuring with his eye where it would be better to jump, and, finally, with a noise fell into the weeds.
- That's the trouble! Have you hurt yourself, have you broken your neck, God forbid? murmured the caring Khivrya.
- Ts! Nothing, nothing, dearest Khavronya Nikiforovna! the priest uttered painfully and in a whisper, rising to his feet.
- Let's go to the house now; there is nobody there. And I was already thinking, Afanasy Ivanovich, that a sore or a sore throat stuck to you: no, yes and no. How are you doing? I heard that the pan-father has now got a lot of all sorts of things!
- A real trifle, Khavronya Nikiforovna; the father received fifteen sacks of spring sacks for the whole fast, four sacks of millet, about a hundred knish, and if you count, there won’t be even fifty pieces, the eggs are mostly rotten. But truly sweet offerings, to put it roughly, are the only ones to be received from you, Khavronya Nikiforovna! continued the popovich, looking tenderly at her and slipping closer.
“Here are your offerings, Afanasy Ivanovich!” she said, putting the bowls on the table and coyly buttoning up her jacket, which seemed to have been unbuttoned unintentionally.
- I bet if this is not done by the most cunning hands of all Evin's kind! - said the priest, taking up the tovchenichki and moving the dumplings with his other hand. “However, Khavronya Nikiforovna, my heart longs for food from you sweeter than all dumplings and dumplings.
- Now I don’t know what else you want, Afanasy Ivanovich! answered the portly beauty, pretending not to understand.
- Of course, your love, incomparable Khavronya Nikiforovna! - whispered the priest, holding a dumpling in one hand, and with the other hugging her wide waist.
“God knows what you are inventing, Afanasy Ivanovich! said Khivrya, casting her eyes down in shame. - What good! You might even want to kiss!
“I’ll tell you about this, if only about myself,” continued the priest, “when I was, roughly speaking, still in the bursa, that’s how I remember now ...
Then barking and knocking at the gate were heard in the yard. Khivrya hastily ran out and returned all pale.
- Well, Afanasy Ivanovich! we got caught with you; a bunch of people are knocking, and it seemed to me the voice of the godfathers ...
The dumpling stopped in the priest's throat... His eyes bulged out, as if some native of the other world had just paid him a visit before this.
- Get in here! Shouted the frightened Khivrya, pointing to the boards laid right under the ceiling on two crossbars, on which various household junk was littered.
Danger gave spirit to our hero. Having regained his composure a little, he jumped onto the couch and climbed carefully from there onto the boards; and Khivrya ran unconsciously to the gate, because the knocking was repeated in them with greater force and impatience.

VII
But here is a miracle, mospan!
From Little Russian. comedy

A strange incident happened at the fair: everything was filled with a rumor that somewhere between the goods a red scroll had appeared. An old woman selling bagels seemed to see Satan in the form of a pig, who constantly leaned over the wagons, as if looking for something. This quickly spread to all corners of the already quiet camp; and everyone considered it a crime not to believe, despite the fact that the seller of bagels, whose mobile shop was next to the tavern, bowed all day unnecessarily and wrote with her feet the perfect semblance of her tidbit. This was joined by still increased news of a miracle seen by the volost clerk in a collapsed barn, so that by night they huddled closer and closer to each other; calm was destroyed, and fear prevented everyone from closing their eyes; and those who were not quite a brave dozen and stocked up on lodging for the night in huts, went home. Among the latter was Cherevik with his godfather and daughter, who, together with the guests who asked to come into their hut, made a strong knock, which frightened our Khivrya so much. Kuma is already a little taken aback. This could be seen from the fact that he twice drove with his cart around the yard until he found the hut. The guests, too, were in a merry mood, and entered without ceremony before the host himself. The wife of our Cherevik was sitting on pins and needles when they began to fumble around in all the corners of the hut.
“What, godfather,” cried the godfather who came in, “are you still shaking with a fever?”
“Yes, he’s not feeling well,” answered Khivrya, looking uneasily at the boards laid under the ceiling.
- Well, wife, get an eggplant in the cart! - said the godfather to his wife, who came with him, - we draw it with good people; damned women scared us in such a way that it's a shame to say. After all, by God, brothers, we drove here for nothing! he continued, taking a sip from the earthenware mug. - I immediately put on a new hat, if the women do not take it into their heads to laugh at us. Yes, even if it really is Satan: what is Satan? Spit on his head! If only at that very moment he would take it into his head to stand here, for example, in front of me: if I were a dog’s son, if I didn’t put a muzzle under his very nose!
"Why are you all of a sudden turning pale?" - shouted one of the guests, who surpassed everyone with his head and always tried to show himself as a brave man.
- I? .. The Lord is with you! dreamed?
The guests smiled. A contented smile appeared on the face of the eloquent brave man.
“Where does he turn pale now!” - picked up the other, - his cheeks bloomed like poppies; now he is not Tsybulya, but a beetroot - or, better, the red scroll itself, which frightened people so much.
The eggplant rolled across the table and made the guests even happier than before. Here our Cherevik, who had been tormented by the red scroll for a long time and did not give rest for a minute to his curious spirit, proceeded to the godfather:
- Say, be kind, godfather! I beg you, and I won’t interrogate the story about this damned scroll.
- Hey, godfather! it would not be suitable to tell at night, but only in order to please you and good people (at the same time he turned to the guests), who, I note, want to know about this curiosity just as much as you do. Well, be so. Listen!
Here he scratched his shoulders, wiped himself with his coat, put both hands on the table, and began:
- I don’t know for what fault, by God, I don’t know, they just kicked one devil out of hell.
- How is it, godfather? interrupted Cherevik, “how could it be that the devil was driven out of hell?
- What to do, godfather? kicked out, and kicked out, like a peasant kicks a dog out of a hut. Maybe a whim came upon him to do some good deed, well, they showed the door. Damn, the poor man got so bored, so bored in hell that even to the loop. What to do? Let's get drunk with grief. Nestled in that very barn, which, you saw, collapsed under the mountain and past which not a single good person will now pass without protecting himself in advance with the holy cross, and the devil has become such a reveler as you will not find among the lads.

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol

Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka

Stories published by the beekeeper Rudy Pank

Part one

Foreword

“What kind of unseen is this: “Evenings on a farm near Dikanka”? What is "Evenings"? And some beekeeper threw it into the light! God bless! a little more they stripped the geese for feathers and exhausted the rags on paper! There are still few people, of every rank and rabble, who have smeared their fingers in ink! The hunt also pulled the beekeeper to drag himself after the others! Indeed, there is so much printed paper that you can’t think of something to wrap in it.”

Listened, heard my prophetic all these speeches for another month! That is, I say that our brother, a farmer, stick his nose out of his backwoods into the big world - my fathers! It's just like sometimes you go into the chambers of a great pan: everyone will surround you and go fool around. Still nothing, even the highest servility, no, some ragged boy, look - rubbish that digs in the backyard, and he will stick; and begin to stamp their feet on all sides. “Where, where, why? go, man, go!..” I’ll tell you… But what can I say! It’s easier for me to go twice a year to Mirgorod, where for five years now neither the district court nor the venerable priest has seen me, than to appear in this great world. And it seemed - do not cry, give the answer.

With us, my dear readers, don’t be told in anger (you may be angry that the beekeeper tells you easily, as if to some kind of matchmaker or godfather), - we, on farms, have long been: as soon as when the work in the field is over, the peasant will climb on the stove to rest for the whole winter, and our brother will hide his bees in a dark cellar, when you will no longer see cranes in the sky, nor pears on a tree - then, only evening, probably already somewhere at the end a light glimmers on the street, laughter and songs are heard from afar, a balalaika strums, and sometimes a violin, talk, noise ... This is our evening party! They, if you please, they look like your balls; just can not say that at all. If you go to balls, it is precisely in order to turn your legs and yawn in your hand; and we will gather in one hut a crowd of girls not at all for the ball, with a spindle, with combs; and at first they seem to get down to business: the spindles rustle, songs flow, and each does not raise an eye to the side; but as soon as the lads with the violinist rush into the hut, a cry will rise, a shawl will be started, dances will go and such things will start up that it’s impossible to tell.

But it’s best when everyone gets together in a tight bunch and starts to guess riddles or just chatter. My God! What will they not tell you! Where do they not dig up the old ones! What fears will not inflict! But nowhere, perhaps, so many wonders were told as at the evenings at the beekeeper Rudy Panka. For what the laity called me Rudy Pank - by God, I don’t know how to say. And my hair seems to be more gray than red now. But among us, if you please do not be angry, there is such a custom: as people give someone a nickname, then it will remain forever and ever. It used to happen that on the eve of the holiday, good people would gather to visit, in the beekeeper's shack, they would sit down at the table - and then I only ask you to listen. And then to say that the people were not at all a mere dozen, not some peasant peasants. Yes, maybe someone else, even taller than the beekeeper, would be honored by a visit. For example, do you know the deacon of the Dikan church, Foma Grigoryevich? Eh, head! What stories he knew how to let go! You will find two of them in this book. He never wore the mottled dressing-gown of the kind you see on many country deacons; but go to him even on weekdays, he will always receive you in a robe made of fine cloth, the color of a chilled potato jelly, for which he paid almost six rubles per arshin in Poltava. From his boots, with us no one will say in the whole farm that the smell of tar was heard; but everyone knows that he cleaned them with the best lard, which, I think, some peasant would gladly put in his porridge. No one will also say that he ever wiped his nose with the hem of his robe, as other people of his rank do; but he took out of his bosom a neatly folded white handkerchief, embroidered along all the edges with red thread, and, having corrected what was necessary, he folded it again, as usual, in a twelfth share and hid it in his bosom. And one of the guests ... Well, he was already such a panic that he could at least now be dressed up as assessors or subcommittees. It used to happen that he would put his finger in front of him and, looking at the end of it, would go to tell - pretentiously and cunningly, as in printed books! Sometimes you listen, you listen, and thought will attack. Nothing, for the life of me, you don't understand. Where did he get those words from? Foma Grigoryevich once wove a glorious saying about this for him: he told him how one schoolboy, who had studied with some clerk to read and write, came to his father and became such a Latin man that he even forgot our Orthodox language. All words turn into a mustache. His shovel is a shovel, the woman is a babus. So, it happened once, they went with their father to the field. The Latin man saw the rake and asked his father: “What do you call it, father? Yes, and he stepped, gaping his mouth, with his foot on the teeth. He did not have time to gather an answer, as the pen, waving, rose and - grab him on the forehead. "Damned rake! - the schoolboy shouted, clutching his forehead with his hand and jumping up a yard, - how the devil would they have pushed their father off the bridge, they are fighting painfully! So that's how! Remembered the name, my dear! Such a saying did not please the intricate narrator. Without saying a word, he got up, spread his legs in the middle of the room, bent his head a little forward, thrust his hand into the back pocket of his pea caftan, pulled out a round lacquered snuffbox, flicked his finger on the painted face of some Busurman general, and, seizing a considerable a portion of tobacco, pounded with ashes and lovage leaves, brought it to his nose with a yoke and pulled out the whole bunch with his nose in the air, without even touching his thumb - and still not a word; Yes, when I reached into another pocket and took out a blue checkered paper handkerchief, then I only grumbled to myself almost a saying: “Do not throw beads in front of pigs” ... “Now there will be a quarrel,” I thought, noticing that Foma had fingers Grigoryevich and developed to give a muzzle. Fortunately, my old woman thought of putting a hot knish with butter on the table. Everyone got to work. The hand of Foma Grigoryevich, instead of showing a chish, stretched out to the knish, and, as usual, they began to praise the mistress of the hostess. We also had one narrator; but he (there would be no need to remember him at night) dug up such terrible stories that his hair went up his head. I deliberately didn't include them here. You will also scare good people so that the beekeeper, God forgive me, like hell, everyone will be afraid. Let it be better, as soon as I live, God willing, until the new year and publish another book, then it will be possible to intimidate people from the other world and the divas that were created in the old days in our Orthodox side. Among them, perhaps, you will find the fables of the beekeeper himself, which he told his grandchildren. If only they would listen and read, and I, perhaps - too lazy to rummage through the damned one - will have enough for ten such books.

But already, as you wish to visit, we will serve melons such as you, perhaps, have not eaten since your birth; and honey, and I swear, you won’t find better on the farms. Imagine that as you bring in the honeycomb, the spirit will go throughout the room, you can’t imagine what it is: pure, like a tear, or expensive crystal, which happens in earrings. And what kind of pies will my old woman feed! What pies, if you only knew: sugar, perfect sugar! And the oil flows like that on the lips when you start eating. Just think, right: what are these women not craftswomen! Have you ever drunk, gentlemen, pear kvass with blackthorn berries or varenukha with raisins and plums? Or have you sometimes eat putru with milk? My God, what food there are in the world! If you start eating, you will eat, and it’s full. Sweetness indescribable! Last year ... But why am I really talking? .. Come only, come as soon as possible; but we will feed you in such a way that you will tell both the counter and the cross.

Pasichnik Rudy Panko.

Just in case, so that they do not remember me with an unkind word, I write out here, in alphabetical order, those words that are not clear to everyone in this book.

Bandu "ra, instrument, kind of guitar.

Bato "g, whip.

Sore, scrofula.

Cooper, bochar.

Bagel, round pretzel, ram.

Storm"to, beet.

Bukhan "ts, small bread.

Vi "nnitsa, distillery.

Galu "shki, dumplings.

Hunger "bets, poor man, bean.

Gopa "to, Little Russian dance.

dove, Little Russian dance.

Di "reason, young woman.

Divcha "that, girls.

Dija", tub.

Dribu "shki, small braids.

Domovi"on, coffin.

Du "la, shish.

Ducat, a kind of medal worn around the neck.

Zna "choir, knowledgeable, fortune-teller.

Zhi "nka, wife.

Zupa "n, a kind of caftan.

Kagan "ts, a kind of lamp.

Kle "pki, convex planks, of which the barrel is composed.

Knish, a kind of baked bread.

Ko "bza, musical instrument.

Como "ra, barn.

Bark "flare, headdress.

Kuntu "sh, upper vintage dress.

Cow"th, wedding bread.

Ku "hol, earthenware mug.

Bald didko, brownie, demon.

Cradle, a tube.

Maki "tra, a pot in which the poppy is rubbed.

Makogo "n, pestle for grinding poppy.

Malach "th, whip.

A bowl, wooden plate.

Young "ca, married woman.

Na "ymyt hired worker.

On "ymychka hired worker.

Donkey "dets, a long tuft of hair on the head, wrapped around the ear.

Eyes "pok, a kind of cap.

Pampu "shki, dough dish.

Pa "sichnik, beekeeper.

Pa "cutting, boy.

Pla "hta, women's underwear.

Pe "clo, hell.

Repurchase, merchant.

Quarrel "x, fright.

Pe'siki, Jewish curls.

Move "tka, shed.

Polutabe "nek, silk fabric.

Pu "trya, food, a kind of porridge.

Rushni "to, wiper.

Svi "tka, a kind of semi-caftan.

Sindya "chki", narrow ribbons.

Sweeties, donuts.

Its "lok, crossbar under the ceiling.

Draining "nka, pouring from plums.

Smu "shki, mutton fur.

So "nyashnitsa, abdominal pain.

Sopi "lka, a type of flute.

Stus "n, fist.

Stri "chki, ribbons.

Troycha "tka, triple whip.

Chloe "pets, boy.

Hu "tor, small village.

Hu "stack, handkerchief.

Qibu "la, onion.

Chumaki", convoys traveling to the Crimea for salt and fish.

Chupri"on,forelock, long tuft of hair on the head.

Cone, a small bread made at weddings.

Yushka, sauce, slurry.

Yatka, a kind of tent or tent.

Sorochinskaya Fair

It's boring for me to live in a hut.

Oh, take me from home

De rich to thunder, thunder,

De goptsyuyut all divki,

De walk couples!

From an old legend

One day of hot August shone with such luxury eighteen hundred ... eight hundred ... Yes, thirty years ago, when the road, ten versts from the town of Sorochinets, was seething with people rushing from all surrounding and distant farms to the fair. In the morning there was still an endless line of chumaks with salt and fish. Mountains of pots wrapped in hay moved slowly, as if bored by their confinement and darkness; in some places only some brightly painted bowl or makitra poked out boastfully from a wattle fence highly perched on a wagon and attracted the touching glances of lovers of luxury. Many passers-by looked with envy at the tall potter, the owner of these jewels, who slowly walked behind his goods, carefully wrapping his clay dandies and coquettes in hated hay.

Lonely aside trudged on exhausted oxen a wagon piled with sacks, hemp, linen and various household luggage, after which he wandered, in a clean linen shirt and soiled linen trousers, his owner. With a lazy hand, he wiped the sweat that rolled in a hail from his swarthy face and even dripped from his long mustache, powdered by that inexorable hairdresser who, without a call, comes to both the beautiful and the ugly and forcibly powders the entire human race for several thousand years. Beside him walked a mare tied to a wagon, whose humble appearance betrayed her advanced years. Many oncoming ones, and especially young lads, took hold of their hats as they caught up with our peasant. However, it was not his gray mustache and his important step that forced him to do this; one had only to look up a little to see the reason for such deference: on the cart sat a pretty daughter with a round face, with black eyebrows rising in even arches above her light brown eyes, with pink lips smiling nonchalantly, with red and blue ribbons tied around her head, which , together with long braids and a bunch of wild flowers, rested on her charming head with a rich crown. Everything seemed to occupy her; everything was wonderful, new to her ... and her pretty eyes were constantly running from one object to another. How not to get lost! first time at the fair! A girl at eighteen for the first time at a fair! .. But not one of the passers-by and travelers knew what it cost her to beg her father to take with her, who would have been glad to do it with her soul before, if not for the evil stepmother, who learned to hold him in his hands as deftly as he does the reins of his old mare, dragged, for a long service, now for sale. The restless wife ... but we forgot that she, too, was immediately sitting at the height of the wagon, in an elegant green woolen jacket, on which, as if on ermine fur, tails were sewn, only red, in a rich plank, mottled like a chessboard, and in a colored calico, which gave some special importance to her red, full face, over which something so unpleasant, so wild slipped through, that everyone immediately hurried to transfer their anxious glance to the cheerful little face of their daughter.

The eyes of our travelers have already begun to open Psyol; from afar there was already a breath of coolness, which seemed more perceptible after the languishing, destructive heat. Through the dark and light green leaves of sapwoods, birches and poplars carelessly scattered across the meadow, fiery sparks, dressed in cold, sparkled, and the beautiful river brilliantly bared its silver chest, on which green curls of trees fell magnificently. Wayward, as she is in those delightful hours, when the faithful mirror so enviably contains her full of pride and dazzling brilliance, her brow, lilac shoulders and marble neck, overshadowed by a dark wave that has fallen from her blond head, when with contempt she throws only jewelry to replace them others, and there is no end to her whims - she changed her surroundings almost every year, choosing a new path for herself and surrounding herself with new, diverse landscapes. Rows of mills lifted their wide waves onto heavy wheels and powerfully threw them, breaking them into spray, sprinkling dust and making noise around the surroundings. At that time, a cart with passengers we knew rode onto the bridge, and the river, in all its beauty and grandeur, like solid glass, stretched out before them. The sky, green and blue forests, people, carts with pots, mills - everything overturned, stood and walked upside down, without falling into the beautiful blue abyss. Our beauty fell into thought, looking at the luxury of the view, and forgot even to peel her sunflower, which she was regularly engaged in all the way, when suddenly the words: “Aw, damsel!” struck her ear. Glancing around, she saw a crowd of lads standing on the bridge, one of whom, dressed more splendidly than the others, in a white coat and in a gray hat of Retilov's coats, leaning on his hips, looked valiantly at the passers-by. The beauty could not fail to notice his tanned, but full of pleasantness, 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.

- Glorious girl! continued the lad in the white coat, without taking his eyes off her. - I would give all my household to kiss her. And here is the devil sitting in front!

Laughter rose from all sides; but such a greeting did not seem too much to the discharged concubine of her slowly speaking husband: her red cheeks turned into fiery ones, and the crackle of choice words rained down on the head of the riotous lad

- So that you choke, worthless barge hauler! So that your father is hit with a pot in the head! May he slip on the ice, damned Antichrist! May the devil burn his beard in the next world!

- Look, how he swears! said the lad, bulging his eyes at her, as if puzzled by such a strong volley of unexpected greetings, “and her tongue, a hundred-year-old witch, will not ache to pronounce these words.

- Centennial! said the old beauty. - Wicked! go wash up ahead! Bad tomboy! I haven't seen your mother, but I know it's rubbish! and the father is rubbish! and the aunt is rubbish! Centennial! that he still has milk on his lips...

Here the wagon began to descend from the bridge, and it was already impossible to hear the last words; but the lad did not seem to want to end with this: without thinking for a long time, he grabbed a lump of dirt and threw it after her. The blow was more successful than one could have imagined: the entire new calico ochipok was spattered with mud, and the laughter of the reckless rake doubled with renewed vigor. The portly dandy seethed with anger; but the wagon had driven quite far at that time, and her revenge turned on her innocent stepdaughter and slow cohabitant, who, having long been accustomed to such phenomena, maintained stubborn silence and calmly accepted the rebellious speeches of an angry wife. However, despite this, her tireless tongue crackled and dangled in her mouth until they arrived in the suburbs to an old acquaintance and godfather, the Cossack Tsybulya. The meeting with godfathers, who had not been seen for a long time, drove this unpleasant incident out of their heads for a while, forcing our travelers to talk about the fair and rest a little after a long journey.

What, my God, my Lord! what is dumb at that fair! Wheels, sklo, yogot, tyutyun, remin, tsibulya, all sorts of kramari ... so, if you want to be in the gut it was thirty rubles, then you would not have bought the fairs.

From the Little Russian comedy

If we talk about the first books of Nikolai Gogol, and at the same time exclude from mention the poem "Hanz Küchelgarten", which was published under a pseudonym, the Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka cycle is Gogol's first book, which consists of two parts. The first part of the cycle was published in 1831, and the second in 1832.

Briefly, many call this collection "Gogol's Evenings". As for the time of writing these works, Gogol wrote Evenings on a farm near Dikanka in the period 1829-1832. And according to the plot, these stories seem to have been collected and published by the beekeeper Rudy Panko.

Brief analysis of Evenings on a farm near Dikanka

The Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka cycle is interesting in that the events taking place take the reader from century to century. For example, "Sorochinsky Fair" describes the events of the 19th century, from where the reader finds himself in the 17th century, moving on to reading the story "Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala". Further, the stories "May Night, or the Drowned Woman", "The Missing Letter" and "The Night Before Christmas" refer to the time of the 18th century, and then the 17th century follows again.

Both parts of the cycle Evenings on a farm near Dikanka are united by the stories of the grandfather of the deacon Foma Grigoryevich, who, with the events of his life, seems to combine the past, the present, reality and fiction. However, speaking about the analysis in the evening on a farm near Dikanka, it is worth saying that Nikolai Gogol does not interrupt the flow of time on the pages of his cycle, on the contrary, time merges into a spiritual and historical whole.

What stories are included in the cycle Evenings on a farm near Dikanka

The cycle includes two parts, each with four stories. Please note that on our website in the section