Please note that we have attempted to translate this story as literally as possible prioritising accuracy over literary style for educational purposes.
The Devil knows what's going on! If Christian people start doing something, they struggle and struggle, like a hound chasing a hare, and everything comes to nothing; but where the devil puts his foot into it and waves his tail – and everything falls on you by itself, as if from the sky.
A clear song rang out along the streets of the village of ***. It was that time when, tired by daily labour and cares, lads and lasses noisily gathered in groups, in the lustre of the pure evening, to express their joy in sounds, always inseperable from sadness. And the pensive evening dreamily embraced the dark blue sky, turning everything into vagueness and distance. Twilight had already fallen, but the songs had not all died away. Bandura in hand went one who had sneaked away from the other singers, the young Cossack Levko, son of the village headman. On his head he wore a hat of astrakhan.
The cossack walks along the road, strums the strings with his fingers and dances a jig. Here he quietly stops before the door of a cottage covered by low cherry-trees. Whose cottage is this? Whose is this door? After being silent for a while, he started to play and to sing:
The sun is low, evening is near,
Come out to me, my sweetheart!
'No, it seems my clear-eyed beauty is fast asleep!' said the cossack, finishing his song and drawing closer to the window. 'Hanna! Hanna! Are you asleep or do you not want to come out to me? You are afraid, probably, that someone would see us, or you don't want, maybe, to show your white little face in the cold! Don't be scared: no one's here. The evening has grown warm. But if anyone does appear, I'll cover you with my shirt, wind my belt around you and cover you with my arms – and no one will see us. And if it should begin to blow cold, I'll press you nearer to my heart, warm you with kisses, put my hat on your little white feet. My sweetheart, my little fish, my necklace! Look out for a moment. Push through the little window at least your little white hand ... No, you're not asleep, you proud girl!' he carried on more loudly, and in such a voice, which showed that he was ashamed of his momentary humiliation. 'It pleases you to vex me, farewell!'
With that he turned away, cocked his hat and proudly walked away from the window, quietly fingering the strings of the bandura. The wooden handle of the door at that moment began to turn: the door opened swiftly with a squeak, and a girl in the season of her seventeenth Spring, wound around with twilight, carefully glancing about and not letting go of the wooden handle, stepped across the threshold. In the half-clear dark welcomingly burnt, like little stars, clear eyes; a red coral bead necklace sparkled, and from the eagle eyes of the lad could not be concealed even the redness, bashfully flaring up on her cheeks.
'How impatient you are,' she said quietly. 'Already you're angered! Why did you choose such a time: crowds of people are reeling about the street... I'm trembling all over...'
'Oh, don't tremble, my red little berry! Press hard against me! ' said the lad, embracing her, throwing away the bandura hanging on a long strap round his neck, and sitting down together with her at the door of the hut. 'You know that an hour without seeing you is bitter for me.'
'You know what I think?' interrupted the girl, thoughtfully gazing into his eyes. 'It seems to me as if something whispers all the time in my ears, in the future we won't see each other so often. The people in your parts are unkind: the girls all glance so enviously, and the lads... I even notice my mother has recently begun to watch me more strictly. I confess, it was merrier for me among strangers.'
Some sort of motion of sadness was made manifest on her face by the last words.
'Two months only in your birthplace, and already you're pining! Perhaps you've had enough of me?'
'Oh, I'm not tired of you,' she said, and smiled. 'I love you, my black-browed cossack! I love you for your dark eyes, and how they look at me – its seems to me as if my soul is smiling, and feels merry and good; for the friendly way you tug your black moustache; for the way you walk down the street, singing and playing your bandura, and I love to listen to you.'
'O my Hanna!' cried the lad, kissing and pressing her more firmly to his breast.
'Wait! Enough, Levko. Tell me first, did you talk to your father? '
'What?' he said, like one just woken up. 'That I want to marry, and you to marry me - I told him'.
But somehow the words 'I told him' sounded sad on his lips.
'What then?'
'What can be done with him? The old codger pretended, in his usual fashion, to be deaf: he hears nothing and still curses that I go about God knows where, acting like a rake and playing pranks with the lads on the street. But don't be upset, my Hanna! I give you my cossack word of honour that I'll persuade him.'
'But you only need to say the word, Levko, and everything will be as you wish. I know that myself: sometimes I would rather not listen to you, but you say the word I involuntarily do what you want. Look, look!' she continued, resting her head on his shoulder and raising her eyes upward, where the boundless warm Ukrainian sky showed blue, curtained below by the bushy boughs of the cherry-trees that stood before them. 'Look, there far away flashed little stars: one, another, a third, a fourth, a fifth... It's true isn't it, that this is God's angels, who've opened the windows of their bright little cottages in heaven and gaze on us? Isn't it, Levko? Isn't this them gazing on our world? What if people had wings, like birds, there we would fly, up high, up high... Oooh, scary! We don't have a single oak that will reach to heaven. But they all say that there is somewhere, in some faraway land, such a tree, which rustles its topmost part in that very heaven, and God walks down it to earth on the night before Easter Sunday.'
'No, Hanna: God has a long ladder that reaches from heaven right down to the very earth. The holy archangels set it up before Easter Sunday; and as soon as God steps onto the first rung, all the unclean spirits fall headlong and in heaps find themselves in the fire, and therefore not one evil spirit on Christ's feast walks the earth .'
'How quietly sways the water, like a baby in a cradle!' continued Hanna, pointing to the pond, gloomily surrounded by a dark maple forest and mourned by willows, sinking their sorrowful boughs in it. Like a weak old man, it held in its cold embrace the faraway, dark sky, strewing with icy kisses the fiery stars, which hung dimly in the midst of the warm nocturnal air, as if feeling a presentiment of the impending apparition of the radiant tsar of the night. Near the forest, on the mountain, dozed an old wooden house with closed shutters; moss and wild grass covered its roof, curly branches had grown around before its windows; the forest, hugging its own shadow, threw on it a wild gloom; a nut grove had spread over the foot of it and rolled down to the pond.
'I remember as if in a dream,' said Hanna, not taking her eyes off him, 'long ago, long ago, when I was still little and still lived with my mother's people, something terrible was said about that house. Levko, you probably know, do tell!'
'God be with them, my beauty! Little is told of it but by peasant women and stupid folk. You'll only disturb yourself, get scared and won't sleep peacefully.'
'Do tell, do tell, darling, black-browed lad!' she said, pressing her face to his cheek and embracing him. 'No! You obviously don't love me, you have another girl. I won't be afraid, and I'll sleep peacefully at night. Now though I won't fall asleep if you don't tell. I will begin to torment myself and to ponder... Do tell, Levko!...'
'Evidently it is true what people say, that beside girls sits a devil, who provokes their curiosity. Well, listen. Long ago, my little heart, a sotnik lived in that house. The sotnik had a daughter, a clear pana's daughter, white as snow, as your little face. The sotnik's wife had died long ago, and the sotnik was thinking about marrying another. "Will you take care of me as before, father, when you take another wife?" "I will, my little daughter; even more strongly than before will I press you to my heart! I will, my little daughter, give you even brighter ear-rings and necklaces!" The sotnik brought his young wife to their new house. Lovely was the young wife. Rosy cheeked and white-skinned was the young wife; only so terribly she looked at her stepdaughter that the girl, seeing her, cried out; and scarcely a word all day long did the stern stepmother say. Night fell: the sotnik went with his young wife his new wife to their bedchamber; the white pana's daughter locked herself in her room. Sorrow overcame her; she began to cry. She looks: a terrifying black cat sneaks towards her; the long fur on it burning, and its iron claws make a noise on the floor. In terror she leapt on to the bench - the cat behind her. She jumped across to the bed – the cat [jumps] there too, and suddenly hurled itself at her neck and strangles her. With a scream she tore it from her and threw it onto the floor; again the terrifying cat crept up. Despair seized her. On the wall hung her father's sabre. She seized hold of it and - bang! -on the floor, chopping off a paw with iron claws, and the cat with a squeal disappeared into a dark corner. The whole day the young wife did not come out of her bedroom; on the third day later she came out with a bandaged hand. The poor pana's daughter guessed that her stepmother was a witch and that she had cut her hand in two. On the fourth day the sotnik ordered his daughter to bring water, to sweep the hut, like a simple peasant, and not to show her face in the pana's house. This was hard for the poor thing, but there was nothing to be done: she began to carry out her father's will. On the fifth day the sotnik banished his own little daughter barefoot from the house and did not even give her a scrap of bread for the road. Only then did the pana's daughter really begin to cry, covering her white face with her hands: "You have destroyed, father, your natural daughter! That witch has destroyed your sinful soul! May the God forgive you; but me, unhappily, evidently, He does not order to live in the fair world!" – And over there, do you see...' Here Levko turned to Hanna, pointing his finger at the house. 'Hanna, over here: there, a little further from the house, is the highest bank. From this bank the pana's daughter flung herself into the water, and from that time she ceased to be in the world...'
'And the witch?' interrupted Hanna fearfully, fixing on him tearful eyes.
'The witch? Old women believe that since that time all the drowned maidens come out on a moonlit night to the panna's garden to warm themselves in the moonlight; the sotnik's daughter became their leader. One night she saw her stepmother beside the pond, fell upon her and with a scream carried her off into the water. But the witch kept her presence of mind: under the water she turned herself into one of the drowned maidens and by this got away from the lash of green reeds which the drowned maidens wanted to beat her with. You must believe the womenfolk! They say also that the pana's daughter gathers together the drowned maidens every night and stares into each of their faces one by one, trying to find out which of them is the witch; but since that time she hasn't recognised her. And if anyone from the living happens along, at once she makes him guess, or else she threatens to drown him in the water . There, my Hanna, that's how the old people talk! The current pan wants to build a wine factory on that place and has specially sent a distiller here for it... But I hear voices. It's our lot coming back from their singing. Goodnight, Hanna! Sleep peacefully; and don't think about all these old wives' tales!' Having said this, he hugged her tighter, kissed her and left.
'Goodbye, Levko!' said Hanna, pensively fixing her eyes on the dark forest. At this moment, the huge, fiery moon majestically began to cut itself free from the earth. Still half of its was under the earth, and already the whole world was filled with some sort of solemn light. The pond trembled with sparks. The shadow from the trees clearly stood out against the dark verdure….
Not worrying himself about a thing, not caring about the pursuers sent after him, the culprit of all this fuss slowly walked towards the old house and pond. It's not necessary, I think, to say that this was Levko. His black warm coat was undone. His hat he held in his hand. Sweat was pouring from him like water [literally, like hailstones]. Majestically and gloomily the maple forest showed black, holding its face to the moon. The motionless pond gave out a fresh breeze over the tired wanderer and compelled him to rest on the bank. All was quiet; in the deep thicket of forest was heard only the songs of a nightingale. An irresistable longing to sleep swiftly began to close his eyes, his tired limbs were ready to doze off and grow numb, his head drooped... 'No, I can't thus fall asleep still here!' he said, getting to his feet and rubbing his eyes.
He looked around: the night presented an even more splendid aspect. Some sort of strange, ravishing radiance had been added to the lustre of the moon. Never yet had he seen anything like it. A silvery mist fell on the neighbourhood. The scent of apple blossom and nocturnal flowers poured over the whole earth. With surprise he looked into the motionless waters of the pond: the old manor-house, turned upside-down, was seen in it pure and with a sort of clear grandeur. In place of the gloomy shutters were seen merry glass windows and doors. Through pure glass panes sparkled guilded objects. And here it seemed as if the window opened. Holding his breath, not moving and staring at the pond, he, it seemed, was transported into the depth of the pond and sees: at first a white elbow appeared at the window, and then appeared a pretty little head with sparkling eyes, quietly shining through dark straw-coloured waves of hair, leaning on an elbow. And he sees: she slightly shakes her little head, she waves, and grins... His heart beat faster... The water rippled and the window closed again.Softly he walked away from the pond and glanced at the house: - the gloomy shutters were opened; and the window-panes shone in the moonlight. 'Well, how little we need to rely on people's rumours,' he thought. 'The house is brand-new; the paint's as fresh as if it had been painted today. Somebody lives here,' - and he walked silently closer, but all was quiet within. Loudly and sonorously echoed the glorious songs of the nightingales, and when they, it seemed, died away in langour and tenderness, there was heard a rustling and the chirping of grasshoppers and the hooting of a marsh bird, that was knocking with her slippery beak in the wide mirror of the water. Some sort of sweet calm and freedom felt Levko in his heart. After tuning his bandura, he started to play and sing:
Oh you, moon, my little moon,
And you, clear star!
Oh, shine down on that home,
And on the beautiful maiden.
The window quietly opened, and that same little head, the reflection of which he had seen in the pond, looked out, attentively listening to the song. Her long eyelashes half-covered her eyes. She was all pale, as homespun cloth, as moon shine; but how marvellous, how beautiful! She began to laugh... Levko trembled.
'Sing to me, young Cossack, some song or other!' softly she called, inclining her head to one side and lowering completely her thick eyelashes.
'What song should I sing you, my bright pana's daughter?'
Tears softly rolled down her pale face.
'Young lad,' she said, and something indefinably touching was heard in her voice. 'Young lad, find me my stepmother! I will deny you nothing. I will reward you. I will richly and generously reward you! I have cuffs embroidered with silk, coral beads and necklaces. I will give you a sash, embroidered with pearl beads. I have gold... Young lad, find me my stepmother! She is a fearsome witch: there was no peace for me on earth because of her. She tormented me, forced me to work, like a simple peasant. Look at my face: she wiped all the blush from my cheeks with her unclean sorcery. Look at my white neck: look – they don't wash off! They don't wash off! They won't wash off for anything, these dark blue marks from her iron claws. Look at my white legs: they have walked much; not only over carpets, on burning sands, over the damp earth, over spiky blackthorn they have walked; and at my eyes, look at my eyes, they cannot see for tears... Find her, young lad, find my stepmother for me! Her voice, which had suddenly risen, halted. Streams of tears rolled down her pale face. A sort of heavy feeling, full of pity and sadness compressed the young lad's chest.
'I am ready to do everything for you, my pana's daughter!' said he with excitement in his heart, 'but how, where am I to find her?'
'Look! Look!' she said quickly, 'she's here! She's on the bank playing in a round dance between my maidens and warming herself in the moonlight. But she is cunning and sly. She has taken on the appearance of a drowned maiden; but I know, but I hear, that she is here. It's hard, it's stifling for me because of her. I cannot swim easily because of her, or freely like a fish. I sink and fall to the bottom, like a key. Find her, young lad!'
Levko looked at the bank: in the thin silvery mist flashed swiftly, like shadows, maidens in white dresses, like meadow-flowers, plucked from lilies of the valley; gold necklaces, jewellery, gold ducats glittered at their necks; but they were pale; their bodies were as if sculpted from transparent clouds and as if illuminated throughout by the silver moon. The circle dance, playing, moved closer to him. He heard voices.
'Let's play Ravens, let's play Ravens!' sounded all, like riverside reeds, moving in the quiet hour of twilight with the airy lips of the wind.
'But who'll be the raven?'
They cast lots - and one maiden walked out of the crowd. Levko started to examine her. The face, the dress - all about her was just like the others. It was noticeable only that she unwillingly played this role. The crowd filed out one after the other and quickly ran away from the attacks of the predatory enemy.
'No, I don't want to be the raven!' said the maiden, feeling weak from fatigue. 'It's a shame to snatch the chicks from the poor mother!'
'You're not the witch!' thought Levko.
'Who then wants to be the raven?'
The maidens again gathered to draw lots.
'I'll be the raven!' volunteered one from their midst.
Levko began to intently examine her face. Swiftly and boldly she ran towards the line and darted at all sides to catch her victim. Here Levko began to notice that her body was not as illuminated as the others: inside it could be seen something black. Suddenly a scream rang out: the raven had thrown herself down on one from the line, seized her, and it seemed to Levko as if she had put out claws and on her face flashed an evil joy.
'The witch!' he said, suddenly pointing his finger at her and turning to the house.
The pana's daughter started to laugh, and the maidens with cries carried off the pretend raven.
'With what should I reward you, lad? I know you don't need gold; you love Hanna, but a strict father prevents you from marrying her. Now he shall not prevent you; take, give this note to him...'
She stretched out her white hand, her face lit up strangely and shone ... With an incomprehensible trembling and wearisome beating of the heart, he gripped the note and... woke up.