my own smock, at a distance, as it lay at the head of the
bed, for the Evil One rolled up in a ball! But the chief thing about
grandfather's stories was, that he never had lied in his life; and
whatever he said was so, was so.

I will now relate to you one of his marvellous tales. I know that
there are a great many wise people who copy in the courts, and can
even read civil documents, who, if you were to put into their hand a
simple prayer-book, could not make out the first letter in it, and
would show all their teeth in derision--which is wisdom. These people
laugh at everything you tell them. Such incredulity has spread abroad
in the world! What then? (Why, may God and the Holy Virgin cease to
love me if it is not possible that even you will not believe me!) Once
he said something about witches; ... What then? Along comes one of
these head-breakers,--and doesn't believe in witches! Yes, glory to
God that I have lived so long in the world! I have seen heretics, to
whom it would be easier to lie in confession than it would for our
brothers and equals to take snuff, and those people would deny the
existence of witches! But let them just dream about something, and
they won't even tell what it was! There's no use in talking about
them!

* * * * *

No one could have recognized this village of ours a little over a
hundred years ago: a hamlet it was, the poorest kind of a hamlet. Half
a score of miserable izbas, unplastered, badly thatched, were
scattered here and there about the fields. There was not an enclosure
or a decent shed to shelter animals or wagons. That was the way the
wealthy lived: and if you had looked for our brothers, the poor,--why,
a hole in the ground,--that was a cabin for you! Only by the smoke
could you tell that a God-created man lived there. You ask, why they
lived so? It was not entirely through poverty: almost every one led a
wandering, Cossack life, and gathered not a little plunder in foreign
lands; it was rather because there was no reason for setting up a
well-ordered khata[5]. How many people were wandering all over the
country,--Crimeans, Poles, Lithuanians! It was quite possible that
their own countrymen might make a descent, and plunder everything.
Anything was possible.

[5] Wooden house.

In this hamlet a man, or rather a devil in human form, often made his
appearance. Why he came, and whence, no one knew. He prowled about,
got drunk, and suddenly