the night before christmas by nikolai gogol

The Night Before Christmas is a lot of fun. Now that Vakula’s interests are aligned with the devil’s, they manage a way forward. Surely we can see where this is all going. For another, to make it impossible, Oksana has said that the only way she’ll marry Vakula is if he brings to her “the very slippers the Tsarita wears.”

Not that it’s likely Vakula will be able to win Oksana’s heart. Furthermore, if Vakula manages to wed the shallow Oksana, that will make it impossible for Soloha to wed Tchub (custom prohibits the parents of the young couple from wedding themselves). Soloha actually does desire Tchub (not the devil), but everyone is after her. No one has an easy time with these relationships. Unfortunately for Tchub, the devil also desires Soloha. But he does like Vakula’s mother, Soloha (who happens to be the witch). The town blacksmith, Vakula, is in love with Oksana, who, “like a beauty, was full of caprices.” Oksana’s father, Tchub, doesn’t like Vakula - not at all. Such is anadolu yakasi escort bayan the setup to a type of romantic comedy. To make matters worse, the devil steals the moon. Within a couple of sentences a witch has taken off and is stealing all of the stars from the skies. A clear winter night had come the stars peeped out the moon rose majestically in the sky to light good people and all the world so that all might enjoy singing kolyadki and praising the Lord. The last day before Christmas had passed. But I must say it was better to be sick on Christmas Eve than to go through what Gogol puts his characters through in The Night Before Christmas. I agree: being sick on Christmas Eve is no fun.

I should have posted this yesterday, but at the stroke of midnight December 23 – 24 I got incredibly sick. The Night Before Christmas by Nikolai Gogol ( Noch, pere Rozhdestvom, 1832) translated from the Russian by Constance Garnett (1926) New Directions (2011) 80 pp

The night before christmas by nikolai gogol