It shone quietly over all the world: the moon rose from behind the hill. It covered the hilly bank of the Dnieper as with precious, snow-white damask muslin, and the shade sank still deeper into the pine thicket.

In the middle of the Dnieper floated a boat. Two lads sat in the bow, their black Cossack hats cocked, and the spray from under their oars flew in all directions like sparks from a tinderbox.

Why are the Cossacks not singing? They do not talk of ksiedzy 2 going all over the Ukraine rebaptising people as Catholics; nor of the two-day battle with the Horde at the Salt Lake. 3 How can they sing, how can they talk of daring deeds: their master Danilo has fallen into thought, and the sleeve of his red flannel jacket, hanging out of the boat, trails in the water; their mistress Katerina quietly rocks the baby without taking her eyes off him, and a gray dust of water sprays over the linen covering her fancy dress.

Fair is the sight from the midst of the Dnieper of the high hills, the broad meadows, and the green forest! Those hills are not hills: they have no foot; they are sharp-peaked at both bottom and top; under them and over them is the tall sky. Those woods standing on the slopes are not woods; they are hair growing on the shaggy head of the old man of the forest. Under it his beard washes in the water, and under his beard and over his hair-the tall sky. Those meadows are not meadows: they are a green belt tied in the middle of the round sky, and the moon strolls about in both the upper and the lower half.

Master Danilo looks to neither side, he looks at his young wife.

"What is it, my young wife, my golden Katerina, have you fallen into sadness?"

"I have not fallen into sadness, my master Danilo! I am frightened by the strange stories about the sorcerer. They say he was born so frightful… and from an early age no child wanted to play with him. Listen, Master Danilo, to what frightening things they say: as if he always imagined that everyone was laughing at him. He would meet some man on a dark evening, and at once it would seem to him that he had opened his mouth and bared his teeth. And the next day the man would be found dead. I felt strange, I felt frightened when I heard these stories," said Katerina, taking out a handkerchief and wiping the face of the baby asleep in her arms. She had embroidered the handkerchief with red silk leaves and berries.

Master Danilo said not a word and began looking to the dark side, where far beyond the forest an earthen rampart blackened and an old castle rose from behind the rampart. Three wrinkles all at once creased his brow; his left hand stroked his gallant mustache.

"It is not so frightening that he is a sorcerer," he said, "as that he is an evil guest. Why this whim of dragging himself here? I've heard that the Polacks want to build some sort of fortress to cut off our way to the Zaporozhye. Only let it be true… I'll scatter the devil's nest if I hear so much as a rumor that he has any sort of den there. I'll burn the old sorcerer so that the crows have nothing to peck at. Besides, I think he has no lack of gold and other goods. Here is where the devil lives. If he has gold… Now we're going to pass the crosses-it's the cemetery! here his unclean forebears rot. They say they were all ready to sell themselves to Satan, souls and tattered jackets, for money. If indeed he has gold, there's no point in delaying now: war can't always bring…"

"I know what you are plotting. No good does the encounter with him promise me. But you are breathing so hard, you look so stern, your eyes are so grim under their scowling brows!…"

"Silence, woman!" Danilo said angrily. "Whoever deals with you becomes a woman himself. Lad, give me a light for my pipe!" Here he turned to one of the oarsmen, who knocked hot ashes from his pipe and transferred them to his master's pipe. "Frightening me with a sorcerer!" Master Danilo went on. "A Cossack, thank God, fears neither devils nor ksiedzy. Much good there'd be if we started listening to our wives. Right, lads? Our wife is a pipe and a sharp saber!"

Katerina fell silent, looking down into the slumbering water; and the wind sent ripples over the water, and the whole Dnieper silvered like a wolf's fur in the night.

The boat swung and began to hug the wooded bank. On the bank a cemetery could be seen: decrepit crosses crowded together. Guelder rose does not grow among them, there is no green grass, only the moon warms them from its heavenly height.

"Do you hear cries, my lads? Someone's calling us for help!" said Master Danilo, turning to his oarsmen.

"We hear the cries, and they seem to come from that direction," the lads said together, pointing to the cemetery.

But all grew still. The boat swung and began to round the jutting bank. Suddenly the oarsmen lowered their oars and stared fixedly. Master Danilo also stopped: fear and chill cut into their Cossack fibers.

The cross on one tomb swayed and out of it quietly rose a withered dead man. Beard down to his waist; claws on his fingers, long, longer than the fingers themselves. Quietly he raised his arms. His whole face twisted and trembled. He obviously suffered terrible torment. "I can't breathe! I can't breathe!" he moaned in a wild, inhuman voice. Like a knife blade his voice scraped at the heart, and the dead man suddenly sank under the ground. Another cross swayed, and again a dead man came out, still taller, still more terrible than the first; all overgrown, beard down to his knees, and still longer, bony nails. Still more wildly he cried: "I can't breathe!" and sank under the ground. A third cross swayed, a third dead man rose. It seemed as if nothing but bones rose high over the ground. Beard down to his very heels; fingers with long claws stuck into the ground. Terribly he stretched his arms upwards, as if trying to reach the moon, and cried out as if someone were sawing at his yellow bones…

The baby asleep in Katerina's arms gave a cry and woke up. The mistress herself gave a cry. The oarsmen dropped their hats into the Dnieper. The master himself shook.

Suddenly it all disappeared as if it had never been; nevertheless, the lads did not take up their oars for a long time.

Anxiously did Burulbash look at his young wife, who fearfully rocked the crying baby in her arms; he pressed her to his heart and kissed her on the brow.

"Don't be afraid, Katerina! Look, there's nothing!" he said, pointing all around. "It's the sorcerer trying to frighten people, so that no one gets into his unclean nest. He'll only frighten women with that! Give my son here!" With these words, Master Danilo raised his son to his lips. "What, Ivan, you're not afraid of sorcerers? No, papa, he says, I'm a Cossack. Enough, then, stop crying! We'll go home! we'll go home-mother will feed you porridge, put you to bed in your cradle, and sing:

Lullay, lullay, lullay,

Lullay, little son, lullay,

Grow up, grow up wise,

Win glory in the Cossacks' eyes

And punish their enemies.

Listen, Katerina, it seems to me your father doesn't want to live in accord with us. He arrived sullen, stern, as if he's angry… Well, if you're displeased, then why come? He didn't want to drink to Cossack freedom, he didn't rock the baby in his arms! First I wanted to confide everything in my heart to him, but it didn't come out, and my speech stumbled. No, his is not a Cossack's heart! Cossack hearts, when they meet, never fail to go out to each other! What, my sweet lads, it's soon the shore? Well, I'll give you new hats. To you, Stetsko, I'll give a velvet one with gold. I took it from a Tartar, along with his head. I got all his gear; only his soul I let go free. Well, tie up! Here, Ivan, we've come home and you keep on crying! Take him, Katerina!"