The blacksmith stopped with his sacks. He imagined he heard Oksana's voice and thin laughter in the crowd of girls. Every fiber of him twitched: flinging the sacks to the ground so that the deacon on the bottom groaned with pain and the headman hiccuped with his whole gullet, he trudged on, the small sack on his shoulder, with the crowd of lads that was following the crowd of girls in which he thought he had heard Oksana's voice.

"Yes, it's she! standing like a tsaritsa, her black eyes shining! A handsome lad is telling her something; it must be funny, because she's laughing. But she's always laughing." As if inadvertently, himself not knowing how, the blacksmith pushed through the crowd and stood next to her.

"Ah, Vakula, you're here! Good evening!" said the beauty with the very smile that all but drove Vakula out of his mind. "Well, did vou get a lot for your caroling? Eh, such a little sack! And the booties that the tsaritsa wears, did you get them? Get me the booties and I'll marry you!" She laughed and ran off with the crowd.

The blacksmith stood as if rooted to the spot. "No, I can't; it's more than I can bear…" he said at last. "But, my God, why is she so devilishly pretty? Her eyes, and her speech, and everything-it just burns me, burns me… No, I can't stand it anymore! It's time to put an end to it all: perish my soul, I'll go and drown myself in a hole in the ice and pass out of the picture!"

Here, with a resolute step, he went on, caught up with the crowd, came abreast of Oksana, and said in a firm voice:

"Farewell, Oksana! Seek whatever suitor you like, fool whomever you like; but you won't see any more of me in this world."

The beauty looked surprised, wanted to say something, but the blacksmith waved his hand and ran away.

"Where to, Vakula?" called the lads, seeing the blacksmith running.

"Farewell, brothers!" the blacksmith called out in reply. "God willing, we'll see each other in the next world; but we're not to carouse together anymore in this one. Farewell, don't remember any evil of me! Tell Father Kondrat to serve a panikhida 4 for my sinful soul. I didn't paint the candles for the icons of Saint Nicholas and the Mother of God, it's my fault, I got busy with worldly things. Whatever goods you find in my chest, they all go to the church! Farewell!"

After saying which, the blacksmith went off at a run with the sack on his back.

"He's cracked in the head!" said the lads.

"A lost soul!" an old woman passing by mumbled piously. "I'll go and tell them the blacksmith has hanged himself!"

Meanwhile Vakula, having run through several streets, stopped to catch his breath. "Where am I running, in fact?" he thought, "as if all is lost. I'll try one more way: I'll go to Paunchy Patsiuk, the Zaporozhets. 5 They say he knows all the devils and can do whatever he likes. I'll go, my soul will perish anyway!"

At that the devil, who had lain for a long time without moving, leaped for joy inside the sack; but the blacksmith, supposing he'd caused this movement by somehow catching the sack with his arm, punched it with his hefty fist, gave it a toss on his shoulder, and went off to Paunchy Patsiuk.

This Paunchy Patsiuk had indeed been a Zaporozhets once; but whether he had been driven out of the Zaporozhye or had run away on his own, no one knew. He had been living in Dikanka for a long time-ten years, maybe fifteen. At first he had lived like a real Zaporozhets: didn't work, slept three-quarters of the day, ate like six mowers, and drank nearly a whole bucket at one gulp; there was room enough for it all, however, because Patsiuk, though short, was of quite stout girth. Besides, the balloon trousers he wore were so wide that, however long a stride he took, his legs were completely invisible, and it looked as though a wine barrel was moving down the street. Maybe that was why they nicknamed him "Paunchy." A few days after his arrival in the village, everybody already knew he was a wizard. If anyone was sick with something, he at once called in Patsiuk; and Patsiuk had only to whisper a few words and it was as if the illness was taken away. If it happened that a hungry squire got a fish bone caught in his throat, Patsiuk could hit him in the back with his fist so skillfully that the bone would go where it belonged without causing any harm to the squire's throat. Of late he had rarely been seen anywhere. The reason for that was laziness, perhaps, or else the fact that it was becoming more difficult each year for him to get through the door. So people had to go to him themselves if they had need of him.

The blacksmith opened the door, not without timidity, and saw Patsiuk sitting on the floor Turkish fashion before a small barrel with a bowl of noodles standing on it. This bowl was placed, as if on purpose, at the level of his mouth. Without lifting a finger, he bent his head slightly to the bowl and sipped up the liquid, occasionally catching noodles in his teeth.

"No," Vakula thought to himself, "this one's lazier than Choub: he at least eats with a spoon, but this one won't even lift his arm!"

Patsiuk must have been greatly occupied with his noodles, because he seemed not to notice at all the coming of the blacksmith, who, as he stepped across the threshold, gave him a very low bow.

"I've come for your kindness, Patsiuk," Vakula said, bowing again.

Fat Patsiuk raised his head and again began slurping up noodles.

"They say, meaning no offense…" the blacksmith said, pluck- ing up his courage, "I mention it not so as to insult you in any way-that you have some kinship with the devil."

Having uttered these words, Vakula became frightened, thinking he had expressed himself too directly and hadn't softened his strong words enough, and, expecting Patsiuk to seize the barrel with the bowl and send it straight at his head, he stepped aside a little and shielded himself with his sleeve, so that the hot liquid from the noodles wouldn't splash in his face.

But Patsiuk shot him a glance and again began slurping up noodles. The heartened blacksmith ventured to continue.

"I've come to you, Patsiuk, may God grant you all good things in abundance, and bread proportionately!" The blacksmith knew how to put in a fashionable word now and then; he had acquired the knack in Poltava, while he was painting the chief's wooden fence. "My sinful self is bound to perish! nothing in the world helps! Come what may, I must ask for help from the devil himself. Well, Patsiuk?" said the blacksmith, seeing his invariable silence, "what am I to do?"

"If it's the devil you need, then go to the devil!" replied Patsiuk, without raising his eyes and continuing to pack away the noodles.

"That's why I came to you," replied the blacksmith, giving him a low bow. "Apart from you, I don't think anybody in the world knows the way to him."

Not a word from Patsiuk, who was finishing the last of the noodles.

"Do me a kindness, good man, don't refuse!" the blacksmith insisted. "Some pork, or sausage, or buckwheat flour-well, or linen, millet, whatever there may be, if needed… as is customary among good people… we won't be stingy. Tell me at least, let's say, how to find the way to him?"

"He needn't go far who has the devil on his back," Patsiuk pronounced indifferently, without changing his position.

Vakula fixed his eyes on him as if he had the explanation of these words written on his forehead. "What is he saying?" his face inquired wordlessly; and his half-open mouth was ready to swallow the first word like a noodle. But Patsiuk kept silent.