An old peasant had a young wife. She often received the visits of a young man who was in love with her and who was named Terekha Gladkoi. The old man found it out and said to his spouse: “Wife, I went to the wood and found Nicholas the hermit; what ever you ask him he will grant.” The next morning he went off to the forest, found an old pine tree, and sat himself in the hollow trunk. His wife set to work, and after she had made a goodly number of pies and little rolls, and savoury blinis [rolled pancakes], she went to the wood to pray to Nicholas the hermit.
When she came near the pine-tree she saw the old man. “There is Nicholas the hermit,” she said to herself, and she began to pray: “Batouchka Nicholas, cause my husband to become blind!”—“Return home, woman,” replied the old man, “your husband shall lose his sight; but leave your pies here.” The peasant woman put down the basket at the foot of the tree and returned home. Soon afterwards the old man left his hiding place, ate up the pies, the rolls, and the blinis, then cut himself a thick stick and made his way to his house. When he neared home he began to grope with his hands and tap with his stick like a blind man. “Why are you walking so carefully, old man?” asked his wife. “Cannot you see well?”—“Alas, my darling, a misfortune has befallen me, and I have lost my sight.” The woman took her husband by the arm and led him into the house, where she made him sit down by the stove.
On the evening of the same day she received a visit from her lover, Terekha Gladkoi. “Now you need no longer be afraid,” she said. “Come and see me whenever you like. Today I went to the wood and I prayed to Nicholas the hermit to make my husband blind, and he has just come back to the house and cannot see at all.” Then the young woman made some blinis, and when they were put on the table, Terekha began to eat them greedily. “Take care, Terekha, not to choke yourself with the blinis,” said the woman, “I will bring you something to moisten them.”
She went to fetch some butter, and as soon as she was gone, the old man took a cross-bow, loaded it, aimed, and shot Terekha Gladkoi dead. Then he jumped off the stove, rolled up a blini into a ball and stuffed it into Terekha’s mouth so that it might seem he had choked himself; and having done that, he resumed his place on the stove.
The woman returned with the butter, and seeing Terekha lifeless, she cried, “I told you not to eat blinis without butter or you would choke yourself. You would not listen to me and now you are dead!” She took the body of the young man, dragged it under the staircase, and went to bed. As she could not sleep alone, she called to her husband to come to her, but he replied, “I am very well where I am.” After some time he cried out as though he were in a dream, “Wife, get up! Terekha Gladkoi is lying dead under our staircase.” “Did you see that in a dream, old man?” she asked.
The husband came down from the stove, pushed the body of Terekha Gladkoi out of the house, and dragged it to the residence of a rich peasant. Before the door was a cask of honey; the old man placed the body against it and put a scoop in the dead man’s hand, so that Terekha had the appearance of being engaged in taking the honey out of the cask. The peasant saw him and took him for a thief, so he ran up and gave him a blow on the head with a cudgel. The body, of course, rolled on the ground, and the old man, who had hidden himself in a corner, quickly ran up and collared the peasant: “Why have you killed this young man?”—“I will give you a hundred roubles if you will not say a word about it to anyone,” replied the peasant.—“Give me five hundred, or I will deliver you up to justice.” The peasant gave him the five hundred roubles.
The old man took the body and dragged it to the priest’s house. Then he took a horse out of the priest's stable, mounted Terekha on its back, and let the animal loose. The priest rushed out, began to curse Terekha, and tried to stop him; the horse galloped into the stable, where the rider collided with a beam of wood, was thrown out of the saddle, and rolled on the ground at the horse’s feet. Then the old man came up and seized the priest by the beard. “Why have you killed this young man? Come with me to the police!”
What was to be done? The priest gave the old man three hundred roubles, on condition that he would hold his tongue, and proceeded to bury the defunct.