On the bridge across the Kur (in VN's novel Bend Sinister, 1947, the river that flows in Padukgrad) one of the illiterate soldiers calls the grocer "ved'min syn [son of a witch]:"
Another soldier came up idly juggling with a flashlight and again Krug had a glimpse of a pale-faced little man standing apart and smiling.
'I want some fun too,' the third soldier said.
'Well, well,' said Krug. 'Fancy seeing you here. How is your cousin, the gardener?'
The newcomer, an ugly, ruddy-cheeked country lad, looked at Krug blankly and then pointed to the fat soldier.
'It is his cousin, not mine.'
'Yes, of course,' said Krug quickly. 'Exactly what I meant. How is he, that gentle gardener? Has he recovered the use of his left leg?'
'We have not seen each other for some time,' answered the fat soldier moodily. 'He lives in Bervok.'
'A fine fellow,' said Krug. 'We were all so sorry when he fell into that gravel pit. Tell him, since he exists, that Professor Krug often recalls the talks we had over a jug of cider. Anyone can create the future but only a wise man can create the past. Grand apples in Bervok.'
'This is his permit,' said the fat moody one to the rustic ruddy one, who took the paper gingerly and at once handed it back.
'You had better call that ved'min syn [son of a witch] there,' he said.
It was then that the little man was brought forward. He seemed to labour under the impression that Krug was some sort of superior in relation to the soldiers for he started to complain in a thin almost feminine voice, saying that he and his brother owned a grocery store on the other side and that both had venerated the Ruler since the blessed seventeenth of that month. The rebels were crushed, thank God, and he wished to join his brother so that a Victorious People might obtain the delicate foods he and his deaf brother sold.
'Cut it out,' said the fat soldier, 'and read this.'
The pale grocer complied. Professor Krug had been given full liberty by the Committee of Public Welfare to circulate after dusk. To cross from the south town to the north one. And back. The reader desired to know why he could not accompany the professor across the bridge. He was briskly kicked back into the darkness. Krug proceeded to cross the black river. (Chapter 2)
The main character in Gogol's story Noch' pered Rozhdestvom ("Christmas Eve," 1832), the blacksmith Vakula, is the son of Solokha, a handsome witch with whom the devil is in love. The Kur river brings to mind stroit' kury ("to woe," from the French phrase faire la cour), the idiom used by Gogol in his story:
Таким-то образом, как только черт спрятал в карман свой месяц, вдруг по всему миру сделалось так темно, что не всякой бы нашел дорогу к шинку, не только к дьяку. Ведьма, увидевши себя вдруг в темноте, вскрикнула. Тут черт, подъехавши мелким бесом, подхватил ее под руку и пустился нашептывать на ухо то самое, что обыкновенно нашептывают всему женскому роду. Чудно устроено на нашем свете! Все, что ни живет в нем, все силится перенимать и передразнивать один другого. Прежде, бывало, в Миргороде один судья да городничий хаживали зимою в крытых сукном тулупах, а все мелкое чиновничество носило просто нагольные; теперь же и заседатель, и подкоморий отсмалили себе новые шубы из решетиловских смушек с суконною покрышкою. Канцелярист и волостной писарь, третьего году, взяли синей китайки по шести гривен аршин. Пономарь сделал себе нанковые на лето шаровары и жилет из полосатого гаруса. Словом, все лезет в люди! Когда эти люди не будут суетны! Можно побиться об заклад, что многим покажется удивительно видеть черта, пустившегося и себе туда же. Досаднее всего то, что он верно воображает себя красавцем, между тем как фигура — взглянуть совестно. Рожа, как говорит Фома Григорьевич, мерзость мерзостью, однако ж и он строит любовные куры! Но на небе и под небом так сделалось темно, что ничего нельзя уже было видеть, что происходило далее между ними.
So stood events: hardly had the devil hidden the moon in his pocket, when all at once it grew so dark that many could not have found their way to the brandy-shop, still less to the clerk's. The witch, finding herself suddenly in darkness, shrieked aloud. The devil coming near her, took her hand, and began to whisper to her those same things which are usually whispered to all womankind. How oddly things go on in this world of ours! Every one who lives in it endeavours to copy and ape his neighbour. Of yore there was nobody at Mirgorod but the judge and the mayor, who in winter wore fur cloaks covered with cloth; all their subordinates went in plain uncovered too-loops; and now, only see, the deputy, as well as the under-cashier, wear new cloaks of black sheep fur covered with cloth. Two years ago, the village-scribe and the town-clerk bought blue nankeen, for which they paid full sixty copecks the arsheen. The sexton, too, has found it necessary to have nankeen trousers for the summer, and a striped woollen waistcoat. In short, there is no one who does not try to cut a figure. When will the time come when men will desist from vanity? One may wager that many will be astonished at finding the devil making love. The most provoking part of it is, to think that really he fancies himself a beau, when the fact is, that he has such a phiz, that one is ashamed to look at it—such a phiz, that, as one of my friends says, it is the abomination of abominations; and yet, he, too, ventures to make love! But it grew so dark in the sky, and under the sky, that there was no possibility of further seeing what passed between the devil and the witch.
In Gogol's story Shinel' ("The Carrick," 1842) the ghost of Akakiy Akakievich (or, rather, a thief whom the police mistakes for a ghost) haunts the Kalinkin bridge across the Fontanka Canal in St. Petersburg:
По Петербургу пронеслись вдруг слухи, что у Калинкина моста и далеко подальше стал показываться по ночам мертвец в виде чиновника, ищущего какой-то утащенной шинели и под видом стащенной шинели сдирающий со всех плеч, не разбирая чина и звания, всякие шинели: на кошках, на бобрах, на вате, енотовые, лисьи, медвежьи шубы — словом, всякого рода меха и кожи, какие только придумали люди для прикрытия собственной. Один из департаментских чиновников видел своими глазами мертвеца и узнал в нем тотчас Акакия Акакиевича; но это внушило ему, однако же, такой страх, что он бросился бежать со всех ног и оттого не мог хорошенько рассмотреть, а видел только, как тот издали погрозил ему пальцем.
A rumor suddenly spread throughout Petersburg that a dead man had taken to appearing on the Kalinkin Bridge, and far beyond, at night, in the form of an official seeking a stolen coat, and that, under the pretext of its being the stolen coat, he dragged every one’s coat from his shoulders without regard to rank or calling—cat-skin, beaver, wadded, fox, bear, raccoon coats; in a word, every sort of fur and skin which men adopted for their covering. One of the department employés saw the dead man with his own eyes, and immediately recognized in him Akakii Akakievich: nevertheless, this inspired him with such terror, that he started to run with all his might, and therefore could not examine thoroughly, and only saw how the latter threatened him from afar with his finger.
In a letter of February 2, 1900, to Ivan Leontiev-Shcheglov (a fellow writer) Chekhov asks his friend and colleague not to moor his ship in the Fontanka Canal:
Милый Жан, отнеситесь к себе, к своему дарованию справедливо, пустите Ваш большой корабль плавать по широкому морю, не держите его в Фонтанке. Простите всем, кто обидел Вас, махните рукой и, повторяю, садитесь писать.
Простите, что я заговорил певучим тоном богомолки.
"Steer your big ship into the open seas; do not moor it in the Fontanka."
Ved'ma ("The Witch," 1886) is a story by Chekhov. The main character in Chekhov's story Na svyatkakh ("At Christmas Time," 1900), Vasilisa is illiterate. She asks Yegor, the brother of the innkeeper's wife, to write a letter to her daughter:
— Что писать? — спросил Егор и умокнул перо.
Василиса не виделась со своею дочерью уже четыре года. Дочь Ефимья после свадьбы уехала с мужем в Петербург, прислала два письма и потом как в воду канула; ни слуху ни духу. И доила ли старуха корову на рассвете, топила ли печку, дремала ли ночью — и всё думала об одном: как-то там Ефимья, жива ли. Надо бы послать письмо, но старик писать не умел, а попросить было некого.
Но вот пришли святки, и Василиса не вытерпела и пошла в трактир к Егору, хозяйкиному брату, который, как пришел со службы, так и сидел всё дома, в трактире, и ничего не делал; про него говорили, что он может хорошо писать письма, ежели ему заплатить как следует. Василиса поговорила в трактире с кухаркой, потом с хозяйкой, потом с самим Егором. Сошлись на пятиалтынном.
И теперь — это происходило на второй день праздника в трактире, в кухне — Егор сидел за столом и держал перо в руке. Василиса стояла перед ним, задумавшись, с выражением заботы и скорби на лице. С нею пришел и Петр, ее старик, очень худой, высокий, с коричневой лысиной; он стоял и глядел неподвижно и прямо, как слепой. На плите в кастрюле жарилась свинина; она шипела и фыркала и как будто даже говорила: «Флю-флю-флю». Было душно.
"WHAT shall I write?" said Yegor, and he dipped his pen in the ink.
Vasilisa had not seen her daughter for four years. Her daughter Yefimya had gone after her wedding to Petersburg, had sent them two letters, and since then seemed to vanish out of their lives; there had been no sight nor sound of her. And whether the old woman were milking her cow at dawn, or heating her stove, or dozing at night, she was always thinking of one and the same thing -- what was happening to Yefimya, whether she were alive out yonder. She ought to have sent a letter, but the old father could not write, and there was no one to write.
But now Christmas had come, and Vasilisa could not bear it any longer, and went to the tavern to Yegor, the brother of the innkeeper's wife, who had sat in the tavern doing nothing ever since he came back from the army; people said that he could write letters very well if he were properly paid. Vasilisa talked to the cook at the tavern, then to the mistress of the house, then to Yegor himself. They agreed upon fifteen kopecks.
And now -- it happened on the second day of the holidays, in the tavern kitchen -- Yegor was sitting at the table, holding the pen in his hand. Vasilisa was standing before him, pondering with an expression of anxiety and woe on her face. Pyotr, her husband, a very thin old man with a brownish bald patch, had come with her; he stood looking straight before him like a blind man. On the stove a piece of pork was being braised in a saucepan; it was spurting and hissing, and seemed to be actually saying: "Flu-flu-flu." It was stifling. (I)
In Chekhov's humorous story Zhiteyskaya meloch' ("A Trifling Occurence," 1886) Belyaev uses the phrase popal, kak kur vo shchi (I fell into the trap):
— Я не обижаюсь и… и не твое дело! Нет, это… это даже смешно! Я попал, как кур во щи, и я же оказываюсь виноватым!
"I'm not offended, and . . . and it's none of your business! No, it . . . it's quite funny though. I fell into the trap, yet I'm to be blamed as well."