Summary “The Night Before Christmas” by Gogol
On the night before Christmas, the month goes back to heaven to illuminate the village. The witch, collecting stars, meets a feature that steals the moon from the sky to take revenge on the blacksmith Vakule, for the artfully painted church wall. On a moonless night Cossack Chub, the father of the beautiful Oksana, will not go to the clerk on kutya, and Vakula will not meet before the holiday with her beloved.
While the devil took care of the witch, whispered to her that “they usually whisper to the whole female family,” Chub and his cousin, leaving the house and marveling at the impenetrable darkness, nevertheless went to the feast.
At this time, the blacksmith entered quietly into Chub’s hut. Spoiled Oksana spun in front of the mirror, praising her beauty. Admiring herself, she did not immediately notice Vakula entering. The blacksmith’s heart was full of tenderness, and Oksana only mocked him. A knock at the door interrupted their conversation.
The devil, wagging around the witch, dropped a month that rose to the sky and lit up everything around him. The snowstorm died down. A noisy crowd broke into Chub’s hut and whirled in a merry dance to Oksana and the blacksmith. On one of her friends the proud beauty saw beautiful cherevichi, embroidered with gold. The lover Vakula promised to get more beautiful for the coveted Oksana, but the capricious girl stated that she needed only those that the queen herself was wearing, and if the smith gets her such, she will marry him.
In the house of the friendly Solokha, guests began to
Vakula, returning home, saw bags in the middle of the house and decided to remove them. Taking a heavy load, he left the house. On the street, in a cheerful crowd, he heard Oksana’s voice. Vakula threw sacks, made his way to his beloved, but Oksana, reminding him of the cherevichki, laughed and fled. An angry blacksmith decided to settle his life, but, coming to his senses, he went after advice to the Cossack Patsyuk. According to rumors, Pot-bellied Patsyuk led friendship with evil spirits. Desperate Vakula asked how to find the way to the devil to get help from him, but Patsyuk gave an indistinct answer. Woke up, the pious blacksmith ran out their huts.
The devil, who was sitting in the sack behind Vakula, could not miss such a prey. He offered the blacksmith a deal. Vakula agreed, but demanded to consolidate the treaty and, by deceitfully crossing the line, made him calm. Now the devil was forced to take the smith to Petersburg.
Walking girls found sacks left by Vakula. Deciding to see what the blacksmith was practicing, they hurried after the sledges to take the find to Oksana into the hut. Because of the bag in which Chub sat, a dispute arose. Kumova’s wife, thinking that inside the sack a wild boar, beat him off from her husband and weaver. To everyone’s surprise, in the bag was not only Chub, but also the deacon, and in one – the head.
Arriving in St. Petersburg on the line, Vakula met the Cossacks, who had traveled through Dikanka earlier, and went with them to see the queen. During the reception the Zaporozhians are talking about their worries. The queen asked what the Cossacks wanted. Vakula fell to his knees and asked for cherevichki, the same as the Empress. Struck by the sincerity of the blacksmith, the queen ordered to bring him shoes.
The whole farm hominid about the death of the blacksmith. And Vakula, having fooled the devil, came with gifts to Chuba to woo Oksana. The Cossack agreed to the blacksmith, and Oksana gladly met Vakula, ready to marry him without any cherevikov. Later in Dikanka praised the wonderfully painted house in which the blacksmith’s family lived, and the church where the devil in hell was skilfully depicted, in which everyone spat when they passed by.
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