pedlers who visit the villages with their baskets, and evenly arched as
though peeping into her clear eyes; that her little mouth, at sight of
which the youths smacked their lips, seemed made to emit the songs of
nightingales; that her hair, black as the raven's wing, and soft as
young flax (our maidens did not then plait their hair in clubs
interwoven with pretty, bright-hued ribbons) fell in curls over her
kuntush. [Footnote: Upper garment in Little Russia.] Eh! may I never
intone another alleluia in the choir, if I would not have kissed her, in
spite of the gray which is making its way all through the old wool which
covers my pate, and my old woman beside me, like a thorn in my side!
Well, you know what happens when young men and maids live side by side.
In the twilight the heels of red boots were always visible in the place
where Pidorka chatted with her Petrus. But Korzh would never have
suspected anything out of the way, only one day--it is evident that none
but the Evil One could have inspired him--Petrus took it into his head
to kiss the Cossack maiden's rosy lips with all his heart in the
passage, without first looking well about him; and that same Evil One--
may the son of a dog dream of the holy cross!--caused the old graybeard,
like a fool, to open the cottage-door at that same moment. Korzh was
petrified, dropped his jaw, and clutched at the door for support. Those
unlucky kisses had completely stunned him. It surprised him more than
the blow of a pestle on the wall, with which, in our days, the muzhik
generally drives out his intoxication for lack of fuses and powder.

Recovering himself, he took his grandfather's hunting-whip from the
wall, and was about to belabor Peter's back with it, when Pidorka's
little six-year-old brother Ivas rushed up from somewhere or other, and,
grasping his father's legs with his little hands, screamed out, "Daddy,
daddy! don't beat Petrus!" What was to be done? A father's heart is not
made of stone. Hanging the whip again upon the wall, he led him quietly