artar garments. All upon them
glowed like a conflagration ... and then they began to joke and play
pranks.... Well, then away with the saints!

An amusing thing happened to my grandfather's aunt, who was at this
wedding. She was dressed in a voluminous Tartar robe, and, wineglass
in hand, was entertaining the company. The Evil One instigated one man
to pour vodka over her from behind. Another, at the same moment,
evidently not by accident, struck a light, and touched it to her; ...
the flame flashed up; poor aunt, in terror, flung her robe from her,
before them all.... Screams, laughter, jests, arose, as if at a fair.
In a word, the old folks could not recall so merry a wedding.

Pidorka and Petrus began to live like a gentleman and lady. There was
plenty of everything, and everything was handsome.... But honest
people shook their heads when they looked at their way of living.
"From the Devil no good can come," they unanimously agreed. "Whence,
except from the tempter of orthodox people, came this wealth? Where
else could he get such a lot of gold? Why, on the very day that he got
rich, did Basavriuk vanish as if into thin air?" Say, if you can, that
people imagine things! In fact, a month had not passed, and no one
would have recognized Petrus. Why, what had happened to him? God
knows. He sits in one spot, and says no word to any one: he thinks
continually, and seems to be trying to recall something. When Pidorka
succeeds in getting him to speak, he seems to forget himself, carries
on a conversation, and even grows cheerful; but if he inadvertently
glances at the sacks, "Stop, stop! I have forgotten," he cries, and
again plunges into revery, and again strives to recall something.
Sometimes when he has sat long in a place, it seems to him as though
it were coming, just coming back to mind, ... and again all fades
away. It seems as if he is sitting in the tavern: they bring him
vodka; vodka stings him; vodka is repulsive to him. Some one comes
along, and strikes him on the shoulder; ... but beyond that everything
is veiled in darkness before him. The perspiration streams down his
face, and he sits exhausted in the same place.

What did not Pidorka do? She consulted the sorceress; and they poured
out fear, and brewed stomach-ache,[11]--but all to no avail. And so
the summer passed. Many a Cossack had mowed and reaped: many a
Cossack, more enterprising than the rest, had set off upon an
expedition. Flocks of ducks were