Richard Dalby - Dracula’s Brethren

‘Tell us, uncle,’ said the young shepherd with the buttons, ‘are there signs by which you can tell a witch?’

‘No, you can’t,’ answered Dorosh, ‘there’s no way of telling: you might read through all the psalm-books and you couldn’t tell.’

‘Yes, you can, Dorosh, you can; don’t say that,’ the former comforter objected; ‘it’s with good purpose God has given every creature its peculiar habit; folks that have studied say that a witch has a little tail.’

‘When a woman’s old, she’s a witch,’ the grey-headed Cossack said coolly.

‘Oh! you’re a nice set!’ retorted the peasant woman, who was at that instant pouring a fresh lot of dumplings into the empty pot; ‘regular fat hogs!’

The old Cossack, whose name was Yavtuh and nickname Kovtun, gave a smile of satisfaction seeing that his words had cut the old woman to the quick; while the herdsman gave vent to a guffaw, like the bellowing of two bulls as they stand facing each other.

The beginning of the conversation had aroused the philosopher’s curiosity and made him intensely anxious to learn more details about the sotnik’s daughter, and so, wishing to bring the talk back to that subject, he turned to his neighbour with the words: ‘I should like to ask why all the folk sitting at supper here look upon the young mistress as a witch? Did she do a mischief to anybody or bring anybody to harm?’

‘There were all sorts of doings,’ answered one of the company, a man with a flat face strikingly resembling a spade. ‘Everybody remembers the dog-boy Mikita and the …’

‘What about the dog-boy Mikita?’ said the philosopher.

‘Stop! I’ll tell about the dog-boy Mikita,’ said Dorosh.

‘I’ll tell about him,’ said the drover, ‘for he was a great crony of mine.’

‘I’ll tell about Mikita,’ said Spirid.

‘Let him, let Spirid tell it!’ shouted the company.

Spirid began: ‘You didn’t know Mikita, Mr Philosopher Homa. Ah, he was a man! He knew every dog as well as he knew his own father. The dog-boy we’ve got now, Mikola, who’s sitting next but one from me, isn’t worth the sole of his shoe. Though he knows his job, too, but beside the other he’s trash, slops.’

‘You tell the story well, very well!’ said Dorosh, nodding his head approvingly.

Spirid went on: ‘He’d see a hare quicker than you’d wipe the snuff from your nose. He’d whistle: “Here, Breaker! here Swift-foot!” and he in full gallop on his horse; and there was no saying which would outrace the other, he the dog, or the dog him. He’d toss off a mug of vodka without winking. He was a fine dog-boy! Only a little time back he began to be always staring at the young mistress. Whether he had fallen in love with her, or whether she had simply bewitched him, anyway the man was done for, he went fairly silly; the devil only knows what he turned into … pfoo! No decent word for it …’

‘That’s good,’ said Dorosh.

‘As soon as the young mistress looks at him, he drops the bridle out of his hand, calls Breaker Bushy-brow, is all of a fluster and doesn’t know what he’s doing. One day the young mistress comes into the stable where he is rubbing down a horse.

‘“I say, Mikita,” says she, “let me put my foot on you.” And he, silly fellow, is pleased at that. “Not your foot only,” says he, “you may sit on me altogether.” The young mistress lifted her foot, and, as soon as he saw her bare, plump, white leg, he went fairly crazy, so he said. He bent his back, silly fellow, and, clasping her bare legs in his hands, ran galloping like a horse all over the countryside. And he couldn’t say where he was driven, but he came back more dead than alive, and from that time he withered up like a chip of wood; and one day when they went into the stable, instead of him they found a heap of ashes lying there and an empty pail; he had burnt up entirely, burnt up of himself. And he was a dog-boy such as you couldn’t find another all the world over.’

When Spirid had finished his story, reflections upon the rare qualities of the deceased dog-boy followed from all sides.

‘And haven’t you heard tell of Sheptun’s wife?’ said Dorosh, addressing Homa.

‘No.’

‘Well, well! You are not taught with too much sense, it seems, in the seminary. Listen, then. There’s a Cossack called Sheptun in our village – a good Cossack! He is given to stealing at times, and telling lies when there’s no occasion, but … he’s a good Cossack. His cottage is not so far from here. Just about the very hour that we sat down this evening to table, Sheptun and his wife finished their supper and lay down to sleep, and, as it was fine weather, his wife lay down in the yard, and Sheptun in the cottage on the bench; or no … it was the wife lay indoors on the bench and Sheptun in the yard …’

‘Not on the bench, she was lying on the floor,’ put in a peasant woman who stood in the doorway with her cheek propped in her hand.

Dorosh looked at her, then looked down, then looked at her again, and after a brief pause, said: ‘When I strip off your petticoat before everybody, you won’t be pleased.’

This warning had its effect; the old woman held her tongue and did not interrupt the story again.

Dorosh went on: ‘And in the cradle hanging in the middle of the cottage lay a baby a year old – whether of the male or female sex I can’t say. Sheptun’s wife was lying there when she heard a dog scratching at the door and howling fit to make you run out of the cottage. She was scared, for women are such foolish creatures that, if towards evening you put your tongue out at one from behind a door, her heart’s in her mouth. However, she thought: “Well, I’ll go and give that damned dog a whack on its nose, and maybe it will stop howling,” and taking the oven-fork she went to open the door. She had hardly opened it when a dog dashed in between her legs and straight to the baby’s cradle. She saw that it was no longer a dog, but the young mistress, and, if it had been the young lady in her own shape as she knew her, it would not have been so bad. But the peculiar thing is that she was all blue and her eyes glowing like coals. She snatched up the child, bit its throat, and began sucking its blood. Sheptun’s wife could only scream: “Oh, horror!” and rushed towards the door. But she sees the door’s locked in the passage; she flies up to the loft and there she sits all of a shake, silly woman; and then she sees the young mistress coming up to her in the loft; she pounced on her, and began biting the silly woman. When Sheptun pulled his wife down from the loft in the morning she was bitten all over and had turned black and blue; and next day the silly woman died. So you see what uncanny and wicked doings happen in the world! Though it is of the gentry’s breed, a witch is a witch.’

After telling the story, Dorosh looked about him complacently and thrust his finger into his pipe, preparing to fill it with tobacco. The subject of the witch seemed inexhaustible. Each in turn hastened to tell some tale of her. One had seen the witch in the form of a haystack come right up to the door of his cottage; another had had his cap or his pipe stolen by her; many of the girls in the village had had their hair cut off by her; others had lost several quarts of blood sucked by her.

At last the company pulled themselves together and saw that they had been chattering too long, for it was quite dark in the yard. They all began wandering off to their several sleeping places, which were either in the kitchen, or the barns, or the middle of the courtyard.

‘Well, Mr Homa! now it’s time for us to go to the deceased lady,’ said the grey-headed Cossack, addressing the philosopher; and together with Spirid and Dorosh they set off to the church, lashing with their whips at the dogs, of which there were a great number in the road, and which gnawed their sticks angrily.