“Turn round, my boy! How
ridiculous you look! What sort of a priest’s
cassock have you got on? Does everybody at the
academy dress like that?”
With such words did old Bulba greet
his two sons, who had been absent for their education
at the Royal Seminary of Kief, and had now returned
home to their father.
His sons had but just dismounted from
their horses. They were a couple of stout lads
who still looked bashful, as became youths recently
released from the seminary. Their firm healthy
faces were covered with the first down of manhood,
down which had, as yet, never known a razor.
They were greatly discomfited by such a reception from
their father, and stood motionless with eyes fixed
upon the ground.
“Stand still, stand still! let
me have a good look at you,” he continued, turning
them around. “How long your gaberdines are!
What gaberdines! There never were such gaberdines
in the world before. Just run, one of you!
I want to see whether you will not get entangled in
the skirts, and fall down.”
“Don’t laugh, don’t
laugh, father!” said the eldest lad at length.
“How touchy we are! Why shouldn’t
I laugh?”
“Because, although you are my
father, if you laugh, by heavens, I will strike you!”
“What kind of son are you? what,
strike your father!” exclaimed Taras Bulba,
retreating several paces in amazement.
“Yes, even my father. I
don’t stop to consider persons when an insult
is in question.”
“So you want to fight me? with your fist, eh?”
“Any way.”
“Well, let it be fisticuffs,”
said Taras Bulba, turning up his sleeves. “I’ll
see what sort of a man you are with your fists.”
And father and son, in lieu of a pleasant
greeting after long separation, began to deal each
other heavy blows on ribs, back, and chest, now retreating
and looking at each other, now attacking afresh.
“Look, good people! the old
man has gone man! he has lost his senses completely!”
screamed their pale, ugly, kindly mother, who was standing
on the threshold, and had not yet succeeded in embracing
her darling children. “The children have
come home, we have not seen them for over a year;
and now he has taken some strange freak he’s
pommelling them.”
“Yes, he fights well,”
said Bulba, pausing; “well, by heavens!”
he continued, rather as if excusing himself, “although
he has never tried his hand at it before, he will
make a good Cossack! Now, welcome, son! embrace
me,” and father and son began to kiss each other.
“Good lad! see that you hit every one as you
pommelled me; don’t let any one escape.
Nevertheless your clothes are ridiculous all the same.
What rope is this hanging there? And you,
you lout, why are you standing there with your hands
hanging beside you?” he added, turning to the
youngest. “Why don’t you fight me?
you son of a dog!”
“What an idea!” said the
mother, who had managed in the meantime to embrace
her youngest. “Who ever heard of children
fighting their own father? That’s enough
for the present; the child is young, he has had a
long journey, he is tired.” The child was
over twenty, and about six feet high. “He
ought to rest, and eat something; and you set him to
fighting!”
“You are a gabbler!” said
Bulba. “Don’t listen to your mother,
my lad; she is a woman, and knows nothing. What
sort of petting do you need? A clear field and
a good horse, that’s the kind of petting for
you! And do you see this sword? that’s
your mother! All the rest people stuff your heads
with is rubbish; the academy, books, primers, philosophy,
and all that, I spit upon it all!” Here Bulba
added a word which is not used in print. “But
I’ll tell you what is best: I’ll take
you to Zaporozhe (1) this very week. That’s
where there’s science for you! There’s
your school; there alone will you gain sense.”
(1) The Cossack country beyond (za) the falls
(porozhe) of the
Dnieper.
“And are they only to remain
home a week?” said the worn old mother sadly
and with tears in her eyes. “The poor boys
will have no chance of looking around, no chance of
getting acquainted with the home where they were born;
there will be no chance for me to get a look at them.”
“Enough, you’ve howled
quite enough, old woman! A Cossack is not born
to run around after women. You would like to hide
them both under your petticoat, and sit upon them
as a hen sits on eggs. Go, go, and let us have
everything there is on the table in a trice. We
don’t want any dumplings, honey-cakes, poppy-cakes,
or any other such messes: give us a whole sheep,
a goat, mead forty years old, and as much corn-brandy
as possible, not with raisins and all sorts of stuff,
but plain scorching corn-brandy, which foams and hisses
like mad.”
Bulba led his sons into the principal
room of the hut; and two pretty servant girls wearing
coin necklaces, who were arranging the apartment,
ran out quickly. They were either frightened at
the arrival of the young men, who did not care to
be familiar with anyone; or else they merely wanted
to keep up their feminine custom of screaming and rushing
away headlong at the sight of a man, and then screening
their blushes for some time with their sleeves.
The hut was furnished according to the fashion of
that period a fashion concerning which hints
linger only in the songs and lyrics, no longer sung,
alas! in the Ukraine as of yore by blind old men,
to the soft tinkling of the native guitar, to the
people thronging round them according to
the taste of that warlike and troublous time, of leagues
and battles prevailing in the Ukraine after the union.
Everything was cleanly smeared with coloured clay.
On the walls hung sabres, hunting-whips, nets for
birds, fishing-nets, guns, elaborately carved powder-horns,
gilded bits for horses, and tether-ropes with silver
plates. The small window had round dull panes,
through which it was impossible to see except by opening
the one moveable one. Around the windows and
doors red bands were painted. On shelves in one
corner stood jugs, bottles, and flasks of green and
blue glass, carved silver cups, and gilded drinking
vessels of various makes Venetian, Turkish,
Tscherkessian, which had reached Bulba’s cabin
by various roads, at third and fourth hand, a thing
common enough in those bold days. There were
birch-wood benches all around the room, a huge table
under the holy pictures in one corner, and a huge stove
covered with particoloured patterns in relief, with
spaces between it and the wall. All this was
quite familiar to the two young men, who were wont
to come home every year during the dog-days, since
they had no horses, and it was not customary to allow
students to ride afield on horseback. The only
distinctive things permitted them were long locks of
hair on the temples, which every Cossack who bore weapons
was entitled to pull. It was only at the end
of their course of study that Bulba had sent them
a couple of young stallions from his stud.
Bulba, on the occasion of his sons’
arrival, ordered all the sotniks or captains of hundreds,
and all the officers of the band who were of any consequence,
to be summoned; and when two of them arrived with his
old comrade, the Osaul or sub-chief, Dmitro Tovkatch,
he immediately presented the lads, saying, “See
what fine young fellows they are! I shall send
them to the Setch (2) shortly.” The guests
congratulated Bulba and the young men, telling them
they would do well and that there was no better knowledge
for a young man than a knowledge of that same Zaporozhian
Setch.
(2) The village or, rather, permanent camp of
the Zaporozhian
Cossacks.
“Come, brothers, seat yourselves,
each where he likes best, at the table; come, my sons.
First of all, let’s take some corn-brandy,”
said Bulba. “God bless you! Welcome,
lads; you, Ostap, and you, Andrii. God grant
that you may always be successful in war, that you
may beat the Musselmans and the Turks and the Tatars;
and that when the Poles undertake any expedition against
our faith, you may beat the Poles. Come, clink
your glasses. How now? Is the brandy good?
What’s corn-brandy in Latin? The Latins
were stupid: they did not know there was such
a thing in the world as corn-brandy. What was
the name of the man who wrote Latin verses? I
don’t know much about reading and writing, so
I don’t quite know. Wasn’t it Horace?”
“What a dad!” thought
the elder son Ostap. “The old dog knows
everything, but he always pretends the contrary.”
“I don’t believe the archimandrite
allowed you so much as a smell of corn-brandy,”
continued Taras. “Confess, my boys, they
thrashed you well with fresh birch-twigs on your backs
and all over your Cossack bodies; and perhaps, when
you grew too sharp, they beat you with whips.
And not on Saturday only, I fancy, but on Wednesday
and Thursday.”
“What is past, father, need
not be recalled; it is done with.”
“Let them try it know,”
said Andrii. “Let anybody just touch me,
let any Tatar risk it now, and he’ll soon learn
what a Cossack’s sword is like!”
“Good, my son, by heavens, good!
And when it comes to that, I’ll go with you;
by heavens, I’ll go too! What should I wait
here for? To become a buckwheat-reaper and housekeeper,
to look after the sheep and swine, and loaf around
with my wife? Away with such nonsense! I
am a Cossack; I’ll have none of it! What’s
left but war? I’ll go with you to Zaporozhe
to carouse; I’ll go, by heavens!” And
old Bulba, growing warm by degrees and finally quite
angry, rose from the table, and, assuming a dignified
attitude, stamped his foot. “We will go
to-morrow! Wherefore delay? What enemy can
we besiege here? What is this hut to us?
What do we want with all these things? What are
pots and pans to us?” So saying, he began to
knock over the pots and flasks, and to throw them about.
The poor old woman, well used to such
freaks on the part of her husband, looked sadly on
from her seat on the wall-bench. She did not dare
say a word; but when she heard the decision which
was so terrible for her, she could not refrain from
tears. As she looked at her children, from whom
so speedy a separation was threatened, it is impossible
to describe the full force of her speechless grief,
which seemed to quiver in her eyes and on her lips
convulsively pressed together.
Bulba was terribly headstrong.
He was one of those characters which could only exist
in that fierce fifteenth century, and in that half-nomadic
corner of Europe, when the whole of Southern Russia,
deserted by its princes, was laid waste and burned
to the quick by pitiless troops of Mongolian robbers;
when men deprived of house and home grew brave there;
when, amid conflagrations, threatening neighbours,
and eternal terrors, they settled down, and growing
accustomed to looking these things straight in the
face, trained themselves not to know that there was
such a thing as fear in the world; when the old, peacable
Slav spirit was fired with warlike flame, and the
Cossack state was instituted a free, wild
outbreak of Russian nature and when all
the river-banks, fords, and like suitable places were
peopled by Cossacks, whose number no man knew.
Their bold comrades had a right to reply to the Sultan
when he asked how many they were, “Who knows?
We are scattered all over the steppes; wherever there
is a hillock, there is a Cossack.”
It was, in fact, a most remarkable
exhibition of Russian strength, forced by dire necessity
from the bosom of the people. In place of the
original provinces with their petty towns, in place
of the warring and bartering petty princes ruling
in their cities, there arose great colonies, kurens
(3), and districts, bound together by one common danger
and hatred against the heathen robbers. The story
is well known how their incessant warfare and restless
existence saved Europe from the merciless hordes which
threatened to overwhelm her. The Polish kings,
who now found themselves sovereigns, in place of the
provincial princes, over these extensive tracts of
territory, fully understood, despite the weakness
and remoteness of their own rule, the value of the
Cossacks, and the advantages of the warlike, untrammelled
life led by them. They encouraged them and flattered
this disposition of mind. Under their distant
rule, the hetmans or chiefs, chosen from among
the Cossacks themselves, redistributed the territory
into military districts. It was not a standing
army, no one saw it; but in case of war and general
uprising, it required a week, and no more, for every
man to appear on horseback, fully armed, receiving
only one ducat from the king; and in two weeks such
a force had assembled as no recruiting officers would
ever have been able to collect. When the expedition
was ended, the army dispersed among the fields and
meadows and the fords of the Dnieper; each man fished,
wrought at his trade, brewed his beer, and was once
more a free Cossack. Their foreign contemporaries
rightly marvelled at their wonderful qualities.
There was no handicraft which the Cossack was not
expert at: he could distil brandy, build a waggon,
make powder, and do blacksmith’s and gunsmith’s
work, in addition to committing wild excesses, drinking
and carousing as only a Russian can all
this he was equal to. Besides the registered
Cossacks, who considered themselves bound to appear
in arms in time of war, it was possible to collect
at any time, in case of dire need, a whole army of
volunteers. All that was required was for the
Osaul or sub-chief to traverse the market-places and
squares of the villages and hamlets, and shout at the
top of his voice, as he stood in his waggon, “Hey,
you distillers and beer-brewers! you have brewed enough
beer, and lolled on your stoves, and stuffed your
fat carcasses with flour, long enough! Rise, win
glory and warlike honours! You ploughmen, you
reapers of buckwheat, you tenders of sheep, you danglers
after women, enough of following the plough, and soiling
your yellow shoes in the earth, and courting women,
and wasting your warlike strength! The hour has
come to win glory for the Cossacks!” These words
were like sparks falling on dry wood. The husbandman
broke his plough; the brewers and distillers threw
away their casks and destroyed their barrels; the
mechanics and merchants sent their trade and their
shop to the devil, broke pots and everything else in
their homes, and mounted their horses. In short,
the Russian character here received a profound development,
and manifested a powerful outwards expression.
(3) Cossack villages. In the Setch, a large
wooden barrack.
Taras was one of the band of old-fashioned
leaders; he was born for warlike emotions, and was
distinguished for his uprightness of character.
At that epoch the influence of Poland had already begun
to make itself felt upon the Russian nobility.
Many had adopted Polish customs, and began to display
luxury in splendid staffs of servants, hawks, huntsmen,
dinners, and palaces. This was not to Taras’s
taste. He liked the simple life of the Cossacks,
and quarrelled with those of his comrades who were
inclined to the Warsaw party, calling them serfs of
the Polish nobles. Ever on the alert, he regarded
himself as the legal protector of the orthodox faith.
He entered despotically into any village where there
was a general complaint of oppression by the revenue
farmers and of the addition of fresh taxes on necessaries.
He and his Cossacks executed justice, and made it
a rule that in three cases it was absolutely necessary
to resort to the sword. Namely, when the commissioners
did not respect the superior officers and stood before
them covered; when any one made light of the faith
and did not observe the customs of his ancestors;
and, finally, when the enemy were Mussulmans or Turks,
against whom he considered it permissible, in every
case, to draw the sword for the glory of Christianity.
Now he rejoiced beforehand at the
thought of how he would present himself with his two
sons at the Setch, and say, “See what fine young
fellows I have brought you!” how he would introduce
them to all his old comrades, steeled in warfare;
how he would observe their first exploits in the sciences
of war and of drinking, which was also regarded as
one of the principal warlike qualities. At first
he had intended to send them forth alone; but at the
sight of their freshness, stature, and manly personal
beauty his martial spirit flamed up and he resolved
to go with them himself the very next day, although
there was no necessity for this except his obstinate
self-will. He began at once to hurry about and
give orders; selected horses and trappings for his
sons, looked through the stables and storehouses,
and chose servants to accompany them on the morrow.
He delegated his power to Osaul Tovkatch, and gave
with it a strict command to appear with his whole
force at the Setch the very instant he should receive
a message from him. Although he was jolly, and
the effects of his drinking bout still lingered in
his brain, he forgot nothing. He even gave orders
that the horses should be watered, their cribs filled,
and that they should be fed with the finest corn; and
then he retired, fatigued with all his labours.
“Now, children, we must sleep,
but to-morrow we shall do what God wills. Don’t
prepare us a bed: we need no bed; we will sleep
in the courtyard.”
Night had but just stole over the
heavens, but Bulba always went to bed early.
He lay down on a rug and covered himself with a sheepskin
pelisse, for the night air was quite sharp and he liked
to lie warm when he was at home. He was soon
snoring, and the whole household speedily followed
his example. All snored and groaned as they lay
in different corners. The watchman went to sleep
the first of all, he had drunk so much in honour of
the young masters’ home-coming.
The mother alone did not sleep.
She bent over the pillow of her beloved sons, as they
lay side by side; she smoothed with a comb their carelessly
tangled locks, and moistened them with her tears.
She gazed at them with her whole soul, with every
sense; she was wholly merged in the gaze, and yet
she could not gaze enough. She had fed them at
her own breast, she had tended them and brought them
up; and now to see them only for an instant!
“My sons, my darling sons! what will become of
you! what fate awaits you?” she said, and tears
stood in the wrinkles which disfigured her once beautiful
face. In truth, she was to be pitied, as was
every woman of that period. She had lived only
for a moment of love, only during the first ardour
of passion, only during the first flush of youth;
and then her grim betrayer had deserted her for the
sword, for his comrades and his carouses. She
saw her husband two or three days in a year, and then,
for several years, heard nothing of him. And when
she did see him, when they did live together, what
a life was hers! She endured insult, even blows;
she felt caresses bestowed only in pity; she was a
misplaced object in that community of unmarried warriors,
upon which wandering Zaporozhe cast a colouring of
its own. Her pleasureless youth flitted by; her
ripe cheeks and bosom withered away unkissed and became
covered with premature wrinkles. Love, feeling,
everything that is tender and passionate in a woman,
was converted in her into maternal love. She
hovered around her children with anxiety, passion,
tears, like the gull of the steppes. They were
taking her sons, her darling sons, from her taking
them from her, so that she should never see them again!
Who knew? Perhaps a Tatar would cut off their
heads in the very first skirmish, and she would never
know where their deserted bodies might lie, torn by
birds of prey; and yet for each single drop of their
blood she would have given all hers. Sobbing,
she gazed into their eyes, and thought, “Perhaps
Bulba, when he wakes, will put off their departure
for a day or two; perhaps it occurred to him to go
so soon because he had been drinking.”
The moon from the summit of the heavens
had long since lit up the whole courtyard filled with
sleepers, the thick clump of willows, and the tall
steppe-grass, which hid the palisade surrounding the
court. She still sat at her sons’ pillow,
never removing her eyes from them for a moment, nor
thinking of sleep. Already the horses, divining
the approach of dawn, had ceased eating and lain down
upon the grass; the topmost leaves of the willows
began to rustle softly, and little by little the rippling
rustle descended to their bases. She sat there
until daylight, unwearied, and wishing in her heart
that the night might prolong itself indefinitely.
From the steppes came the ringing neigh of the horses,
and red streaks shone brightly in the sky. Bulba
suddenly awoke, and sprang to his feet. He remembered
quite well what he had ordered the night before.
“Now, my men, you’ve slept enough! ’tis
time, ’tis time! Water the horses!
And where is the old woman?” He generally called
his wife so. “Be quick, old woman, get
us something to eat; the way is long.”
The poor old woman, deprived of her
last hope, slipped sadly into the hut.
Whilst she, with tears, prepared what
was needed for breakfast, Bulba gave his orders, went
to the stable, and selected his best trappings for
his children with his own hand.
The scholars were suddenly transformed.
Red morocco boots with silver heels took the place
of their dirty old ones; trousers wide as the Black
Sea, with countless folds and plaits, were kept up
by golden girdles from which hung long slender thongs,
with tassles and other tinkling things, for pipes.
Their jackets of scarlet cloth were girt by flowered
sashes into which were thrust engraved Turkish pistols;
their swords clanked at their heels. Their faces,
already a little sunburnt, seemed to have grown handsomer
and whiter; their slight black moustaches now cast
a more distinct shadow on this pallor and set off their
healthy youthful complexions. They looked
very handsome in their black sheepskin caps, with
cloth-of-gold crowns.
When their poor mother saw them, she
could not utter a word, and tears stood in her eyes.
“Now, my lads, all is ready;
no delay!” said Bulba at last. “But
we must first all sit down together, in accordance
with Christian custom before a journey.”
All sat down, not excepting the servants,
who had been standing respectfully at the door.
“Now, mother, bless your children,”
said Bulba. “Pray God that they may fight
bravely, always defend their warlike honour, always
defend the faith of Christ; and, if not, that they
may die, so that their breath may not be longer in
the world.”
“Come to your mother, children;
a mother’s prayer protects on land and sea.”
The mother, weak as mothers are, embraced
them, drew out two small holy pictures, and hung them,
sobbing, around their necks. “May God’s
mother keep you! Children, do not forget
your mother send some little word of yourselves ”
She could say no more.
“Now, children, let us go,” said Bulba.
At the door stood the horses, ready
saddled. Bulba sprang upon his “Devil,”
which bounded wildly, on feeling on his back a load
of over thirty stone, for Taras was extremely stout
and heavy.
When the mother saw that her sons
were also mounted, she rushed towards the younger,
whose features expressed somewhat more gentleness than
those of his brother. She grasped his stirrup,
clung to his saddle, and with despair in her eyes,
refused to loose her hold. Two stout Cossacks
seized her carefully, and bore her back into the hut.
But before the cavalcade had passed out of the courtyard,
she rushed with the speed of a wild goat, disproportionate
to her years, to the gate, stopped a horse with irresistible
strength, and embraced one of her sons with mad, unconscious
violence. Then they led her away again.
The young Cossacks rode on sadly,
repressing their tears out of fear of their father,
who, on his side, was somewhat moved, although he strove
not to show it. The morning was grey, the green
sward bright, the birds twittered rather discordantly.
They glanced back as they rode. Their paternal
farm seemed to have sunk into the earth. All that
was visible above the surface were the two chimneys
of their modest hut and the tops of the trees up whose
trunks they had been used to climb like squirrels.
Before them still stretched the field by which they
could recall the whole story of their lives, from
the years when they rolled in its dewy grass down
to the years when they awaited in it the dark-browed
Cossack maiden, running timidly across it on quick
young feet. There is the pole above the well,
with the waggon wheel fastened to its top, rising
solitary against the sky; already the level which they
have traversed appears a hill in the distance, and
now all has disappeared. Farewell, childhood,
games, all, all, farewell!
Chapter II. All three
horsemen rode in silence. Old Taras’s thoughts
were far away: before him passed his youth, his
years the swift-flying years, over which
the Cossack always weeps, wishing that his life might
be all youth. He wondered whom of his former
comrades he should meet at the Setch. He reckoned
up how many had already died, how many were still
alive. Tears formed slowly in his eyes, and his
grey head bent sadly.
His sons were occupied with other
thoughts. But we must speak further of his sons.
They had been sent, when twelve years old, to the academy
at Kief, because all leaders of that day considered
it indispensable to give their children an education,
although it was afterwards utterly forgotten.
Like all who entered the academy, they were wild, having
been brought up in unrestrained freedom; and whilst
there they had acquired some polish, and pursued some
common branches of knowledge which gave them a certain
resemblance to each other.
The elder, Ostap, began his scholastic
career by running away in the course of the first
year. They brought him back, whipped him well,
and set him down to his books. Four times did
he bury his primer in the earth; and four times, after
giving him a sound thrashing, did they buy him a new
one. But he would no doubt have repeated this
feat for the fifth time, had not his father given
him a solemn assurance that he would keep him at monastic
work for twenty years, and sworn in advance that he
should never behold Zaporozhe all his life long, unless
he learned all the sciences taught in the academy.
It was odd that the man who said this was that very
Taras Bulba who condemned all learning, and counselled
his children, as we have seen, not to trouble themselves
at all about it. From that moment, Ostap began
to pore over his tiresome books with exemplary diligence,
and quickly stood on a level with the best. The
style of education in that age differed widely from
the manner of life. The scholastic, grammatical,
rhetorical, and logical subtle ties in vogue were
decidedly out of consonance with the times, never
having any connection with, and never being encountered
in, actual life. Those who studied them, even
the least scholastic, could not apply their knowledge
to anything whatever. The learned men of those
days were even more incapable than the rest, because
farther removed from all experience. Moreover,
the republican constitution of the academy, the fearful
multitude of young, healthy, strong fellows, inspired
the students with an activity quite outside the limits
of their learning. Poor fare, or frequent punishments
of fasting, with the numerous requirements arising
in fresh, strong, healthy youth, combined to arouse
in them that spirit of enterprise which was afterwards
further developed among the Zaporozhians. The
hungry student running about the streets of Kief forced
every one to be on his guard. Dealers sitting
in the bazaar covered their pies, their cakes, and
their pumpkin-rolls with their hands, like eagles
protecting their young, if they but caught sight of
a passing student. The consul or monitor, who
was bound by his duty to look after the comrades entrusted
to his care, had such frightfully wide pockets to
his trousers that he could stow away the whole contents
of the gaping dealer’s stall in them. These
students constituted an entirely separate world, for
they were not admitted to the higher circles, composed
of Polish and Russian nobles. Even the Waiwode,
Adam Kisel, in spite of the patronage he bestowed
upon the academy, did not seek to introduce them into
society, and ordered them to be kept more strictly
in supervision. This command was quite superfluous,
for neither the rector nor the monkish professors
spared rod or whip; and the lictors sometimes, by
their orders, lashed their consuls so severely that
the latter rubbed their trousers for weeks afterwards.
This was to many of them a trifle, only a little more
stinging than good vodka with pepper: others
at length grew tired of such constant blisters, and
ran away to Zaporozhe if they could find the road
and were not caught on the way. Ostap Bulba,
although he began to study logic, and even theology,
with much zeal, did not escape the merciless rod.
Naturally, all this tended to harden his character,
and give him that firmness which distinguishes the
Cossacks. He always held himself aloof from his
comrades.
He rarely led others into such hazardous
enterprises as robbing a strange garden or orchard;
but, on the other hand, he was always among the first
to join the standard of an adventurous student.
And never, under any circumstances, did he betray
his comrades; neither imprisonment nor beatings could
make him do so. He was unassailable by any temptations
save those of war and revelry; at least, he scarcely
ever dreamt of others. He was upright with his
equals. He was kind-hearted, after the only fashion
that kind-heartedness could exist in such a character
and at such a time. He was touched to his very
heart by his poor mother’s tears; but this only
vexed him, and caused him to hang his head in thought.
His younger brother, Andrii, had livelier
and more fully developed feelings. He learned
more willingly and without the effort with which strong
and weighty characters generally have to make in order
to apply themselves to study. He was more inventive-minded
than his brother, and frequently appeared as the leader
of dangerous expeditions; sometimes, thanks to the
quickness of his mind, contriving to escape punishment
when his brother Ostap, abandoning all efforts, stripped
off his gaberdine and lay down upon the floor without
a thought of begging for mercy. He too thirsted
for action; but, at the same time, his soul was accessible
to other sentiments. The need of love burned ardently
within him. When he had passed his eighteenth
year, woman began to present herself more frequently
in his dreams; listening to philosophical discussions,
he still beheld her, fresh, black-eyed, tender; before
him constantly flitted her elastic bosom, her soft,
bare arms; the very gown which clung about her youthful
yet well-rounded limbs breathed into his visions a
certain inexpressible sensuousness. He carefully
concealed this impulse of his passionate young soul
from his comrades, because in that age it was held
shameful and dishonourable for a Cossack to think
of love and a wife before he had tasted battle.
On the whole, during the last year, he had acted more
rarely as leader to the bands of students, but had
roamed more frequently alone, in remote corners of
Kief, among low-roofed houses, buried in cherry orchards,
peeping alluringly at the street. Sometimes he
betook himself to the more aristocratic streets, in
the old Kief of to-day, where dwelt Little Russian
and Polish nobles, and where houses were built in
more fanciful style. Once, as he was gaping along,
an old-fashioned carriage belonging to some Polish
noble almost drove over him; and the heavily moustached
coachman, who sat on the box, gave him a smart cut
with his whip. The young student fired up; with
thoughtless daring he seized the hind-wheel with his
powerful hands and stopped the carriage. But
the coachman, fearing a drubbing, lashed his horses;
they sprang forward, and Andrii, succeeding happily
in freeing his hands, was flung full length on the
ground with his face flat in the mud. The most
ringing and harmonious of laughs resounded above him.
He raised his eyes and saw, standing at a window, a
beauty such as he had never beheld in all his life,
black-eyed, and with skin white as snow illumined
by the dawning flush of the sun. She was laughing
heartily, and her laugh enhanced her dazzling loveliness.
Taken aback he gazed at her in confusion, abstractedly
wiping the mud from his face, by which means it became
still further smeared. Who could this beauty
be? He sought to find out from the servants, who,
in rich liveries, stood at the gate in a crowd surrounding
a young guitar-player; but they only laughed when
they saw his besmeared face and deigned him no reply.
At length he learned that she was the daughter of
the Waiwode of Koven, who had come thither for a time.
The following night, with the daring characteristic
of the student, he crept through the palings into
the garden and climbed a tree which spread its branches
upon the very roof of the house. From the tree
he gained the roof, and made his way down the chimney
straight into the bedroom of the beauty, who at that
moment was seated before a lamp, engaged in removing
the costly earrings from her ears. The beautiful
Pole was so alarmed on suddenly beholding an unknown
man that she could not utter a single word; but when
she perceived that the student stood before her with
downcast eyes, not daring to move a hand through timidity,
when she recognised in him the one who had fallen
in the street, laughter again overpowered her.
Moreover, there was nothing terrible
about Andrii’s features; he was very handsome.
She laughed heartily, and amused herself over him for
a long time. The lady was giddy, like all Poles;
but her eyes her wondrous clear, piercing
eyes shot one glance, a long glance.
The student could not move hand or foot, but stood
bound as in a sack, when the Waiwode’s daughter
approached him boldly, placed upon his head her glittering
diadem, hung her earrings on his lips, and flung over
him a transparent muslin chemisette with gold-embroidered
garlands. She adorned him, and played a thousand
foolish pranks, with the childish carelessness which
distinguishes the giddy Poles, and which threw the
poor student into still greater confusion.
He cut a ridiculous feature, gazing
immovably, and with open mouth, into her dazzling
eyes. A knock at the door startled her. She
ordered him to hide himself under the bed, and, as
soon as the disturber was gone, called her maid, a
Tatar prisoner, and gave her orders to conduct him
to the garden with caution, and thence show him through
the fence. But our student this time did not
pass the fence so successfully. The watchman
awoke, and caught him firmly by the foot; and the servants,
assembling, beat him in the street, until his swift
legs rescued him. After that it became very dangerous
to pass the house, for the Waiwode’s domestics
were numerous. He met her once again at church.
She saw him, and smiled pleasantly, as at an old acquaintance.
He saw her once more, by chance; but shortly afterwards
the Waiwode departed, and, instead of the beautiful
black-eyed Pole, some fat face or other gazed from
the window. This was what Andrii was thinking
about, as he hung his head and kept his eyes on his
horse’s mane.
In the meantime the steppe had long
since received them all into its green embrace; and
the high grass, closing round, concealed them, till
only their black Cossack caps appeared above it.
“Eh, eh, why are you so quiet,
lads?” said Bulba at length, waking from his
own reverie. “You’re like monks.
Now, all thinking to the Evil One, once for all!
Take your pipes in your teeth, and let us smoke, and
spur on our horses so swiftly that no bird can overtake
us.”
And the Cossacks, bending low on their
horses’ necks, disappeared in the grass.
Their black caps were no longer to be seen; a streak
of trodden grass alone showed the trace of their swift
flight.
The sun had long since looked forth
from the clear heavens and inundated the steppe with
his quickening, warming light. All that was dim
and drowsy in the Cossacks’ minds flew away
in a twinkling: their hearts fluttered like birds.
The farther they penetrated the steppe,
the more beautiful it became. Then all the South,
all that region which now constitutes New Russia,
even as far as the Black Sea, was a green, virgin wilderness.
No plough had ever passed over the immeasurable waves
of wild growth; horses alone, hidden in it as in a
forest, trod it down. Nothing in nature could
be finer. The whole surface resembled a golden-green
ocean, upon which were sprinkled millions of different
flowers. Through the tall, slender stems of the
grass peeped light-blue, dark-blue, and lilac star-thistles;
the yellow broom thrust up its pyramidal head; the
parasol-shaped white flower of the false flax shimmered
on high. A wheat-ear, brought God knows whence,
was filling out to ripening. Amongst the roots
of this luxuriant vegetation ran partridges with outstretched
necks. The air was filled with the notes of a
thousand different birds. On high hovered the
hawks, their wings outspread, and their eyes fixed
intently on the grass. The cries of a flock of
wild ducks, ascending from one side, were echoed from
God knows what distant lake. From the grass arose,
with measured sweep, a gull, and skimmed wantonly
through blue waves of air. And now she has vanished
on high, and appears only as a black dot: now
she has turned her wings, and shines in the sunlight.
Oh, steppes, how beautiful you are!
Our travellers halted only a few minutes
for dinner. Their escort of ten Cossacks sprang
from their horses and undid the wooden casks of brandy,
and the gourds which were used instead of drinking
vessels. They ate only cakes of bread and dripping;
they drank but one cup apiece to strengthen them,
for Taras Bulba never permitted intoxication upon the
road, and then continued their journey until evening.
In the evening the whole steppe changed
its aspect. All its varied expanse was bathed
in the last bright glow of the sun; and as it grew
dark gradually, it could be seen how the shadow flitted
across it and it became dark green. The mist
rose more densely; each flower, each blade of grass,
emitted a fragrance as of ambergris, and the whole
steppe distilled perfume. Broad bands of rosy
gold were streaked across the dark blue heaven, as
with a gigantic brush; here and there gleamed, in
white tufts, light and transparent clouds: and
the freshest, most enchanting of gentle breezes barely
stirred the tops of the grass-blades, like sea-waves,
and caressed the cheek. The music which had resounded
through the day had died away, and given place to another.
The striped marmots crept out of their holes,
stood erect on their hind legs, and filled the steppe
with their whistle. The whirr of the grasshoppers
had become more distinctly audible. Sometimes
the cry of the swan was heard from some distant lake,
ringing through the air like a silver trumpet.
The travellers, halting in the midst of the plain,
selected a spot for their night encampment, made a
fire, and hung over it the kettle in which they cooked
their oatmeal; the steam rising and floating aslant
in the air. Having supped, the Cossacks lay down
to sleep, after hobbling their horses and turning
them out to graze. They lay down in their gaberdines.
The stars of night gazed directly down upon them.
They could hear the countless myriads of insects which
filled the grass; their rasping, whistling, and chirping,
softened by the fresh air, resounded clearly through
the night, and lulled the drowsy ear. If one
of them rose and stood for a time, the steppe presented
itself to him strewn with the sparks of glow-worms.
At times the night sky was illumined in spots by the
glare of burning reeds along pools or river-bank;
and dark flights of swans flying to the north were
suddenly lit up by the silvery, rose-coloured gleam,
till it seemed as though red kerchiefs were floating
in the dark heavens.
The travellers proceeded onward without
any adventure. They came across no villages.
It was ever the same boundless, waving, beautiful steppe.
Only at intervals the summits of distant forests shone
blue, on one hand, stretching along the banks of the
Dnieper. Once only did Taras point out to his
sons a small black speck far away amongst the grass,
saying, “Look, children! yonder gallops a Tatar.”
The little head with its long moustaches fixed its
narrow eyes upon them from afar, its nostrils snuffing
the air like a greyhound’s, and then disappeared
like an antelope on its owner perceiving that the
Cossacks were thirteen strong. “And now,
children, don’t try to overtake the Tatar!
You would never catch him to all eternity; he has
a horse swifter than my Devil.” But Bulba
took precautions, fearing hidden ambushes. They
galloped along the course of a small stream, called
the Tatarka, which falls into the Dnieper; rode into
the water and swam with their horses some distance
in order to conceal their trail. Then, scrambling
out on the bank, they continued their road.
Three days later they were not far
from the goal of their journey. The air suddenly
grew colder: they could feel the vicinity of the
Dnieper. And there it gleamed afar, distinguishable
on the horizon as a dark band. It sent forth
cold waves, spreading nearer, nearer, and finally
seeming to embrace half the entire surface of the earth.
This was that section of its course where the river,
hitherto confined by the rapids, finally makes its
own away and, roaring like the sea, rushes on at will;
where the islands, flung into its midst, have pressed
it farther from their shores, and its waves have spread
widely over the earth, encountering neither cliffs
nor hills. The Cossacks, alighting from their
horses, entered the ferry-boat, and after a three hours’
sail reached the shores of the island of Khortitz,
where at that time stood the Setch, which so often
changed its situation.
A throng of people hastened to the
shore with boats. The Cossacks arranged the horses’
trappings. Taras assumed a stately air, pulled
his belt tighter, and proudly stroked his moustache.
His sons also inspected themselves from head to foot,
with some apprehension and an undefined feeling of
satisfaction; and all set out together for the suburb,
which was half a verst from the Setch. On their
arrival, they were deafened by the clang of fifty
blacksmiths’ hammers beating upon twenty-five
anvils sunk in the earth. Stout tanners seated
beneath awnings were scraping ox-hides with their
strong hands; shop-keepers sat in their booths, with
piles of flints, steels, and powder before them; Armenians
spread out their rich handkerchiefs; Tatars turned
their kabobs upon spits; a Jew, with his head thrust
forward, was filtering some corn-brandy from a cask.
But the first man they encountered was a Zaporozhetz
(1) who was sleeping in the very middle of the road
with legs and arms outstretched. Taras Bulba
could not refrain from halting to admire him.
“How splendidly developed he is; phew, what
a magnificent figure!” he said, stopping his
horse. It was, in fact, a striking picture.
This Zaporozhetz had stretched himself out in the
road like a lion; his scalp-lock, thrown proudly behind
him, extended over upwards of a foot of ground; his
trousers of rich red cloth were spotted with tar, to
show his utter disdain for them. Having admired
to his heart’s content, Bulba passed on through
the narrow street, crowded with mechanics exercising
their trades, and with people of all nationalities
who thronged this suburb of the Setch, resembling
a fair, and fed and clothed the Setch itself, which
knew only how to revel and burn powder.
(1) Sometimes written Zaporovian.
At length they left the suburb behind
them, and perceived some scattered kurens (2), covered
with turf, or in Tatar fashion with felt. Some
were furnished with cannon. Nowhere were any
fences visible, or any of those low-roofed houses
with verandahs supported upon low wooden pillars, such
as were seen in the suburb. A low wall and a ditch,
totally unguarded, betokened a terrible degree of
recklessness. Some sturdy Zaporozhtzi lying,
pipe in mouth, in the very road, glanced indifferently
at them, but never moved from their places. Taras
threaded his way carefully among them, with his sons,
saying, “Good-day, gentles.” “Good-day
to you,” answered the Zaporozhtzi. Scattered
over the plain were picturesque groups. From
their weatherbeaten faces, it was plain that all were
steeled in battle, and had faced every sort of bad
weather. And there it was, the Setch! There
was the lair from whence all those men, proud and
strong as lions, issued forth! There was the spot
whence poured forth liberty and Cossacks all over
the Ukraine.
(2) Enormous wooden sheds, each inhabited by
a troop or kuren.
The travellers entered the great square
where the council generally met. On a huge overturned
cask sat a Zaporozhetz without his shirt; he was holding
it in his hands, and slowly sewing up the holes in
it. Again their way was stopped by a whole crowd
of musicians, in the midst of whom a young Zaporozhetz
was dancing, with head thrown back and arms outstretched.
He kept shouting, “Play faster, musicians!
Begrudge not, Thoma, brandy to these orthodox Christians!”
And Thoma, with his blackened eye, went on measuring
out without stint, to every one who presented himself,
a huge jugful.
About the youthful Zaporozhetz four
old men, moving their feet quite briskly, leaped like
a whirlwind to one side, almost upon the musicians’
heads, and, suddenly, retreating, squatted down and
drummed the hard earth vigorously with their silver
heels. The earth hummed dully all about, and
afar the air resounded with national dance tunes beaten
by the clanging heels of their boots.
But one shouted more loudly than all
the rest, and flew after the others in the dance.
His scalp-lock streamed in the wind, his muscular chest
was bare, his warm, winter fur jacket was hanging by
the sleeves, and the perspiration poured from him
as from a pig. “Take off your jacket!”
said Taras at length: “see how he steams!” “I
can’t,” shouted the Cossack. “Why?” “I
can’t: I have such a disposition that whatever
I take off, I drink up.” And indeed, the
young fellow had not had a cap for a long time, nor
a belt to his caftan, nor an embroidered neckerchief:
all had gone the proper road. The throng increased;
more folk joined the dancer: and it was impossible
to observe without emotion how all yielded to the
impulse of the dance, the freest, the wildest, the
world has ever seen, still called from its mighty originators,
the Kosachka.
“Oh, if I had no horse to hold,”
exclaimed Taras, “I would join the dance myself.”
Meanwhile there began to appear among
the throng men who were respected for their prowess
throughout all the Setch old greyheads who
had been leaders more than once. Taras soon found
a number of familiar faces. Ostap and Andrii
heard nothing but greetings. “Ah, it is
you, Petcheritza! Good day, Kozolup!” “Whence
has God brought you, Taras?” “How
did you come here, Doloto? Health to you, Kirdyaga!
Hail to you, Gustui! Did I ever think of seeing
you, Remen?” And these heroes, gathered from
all the roving population of Eastern Russia, kissed
each other and began to ask questions. “But
what has become of Kasyan? Where is Borodavka?
and Koloper? and Pidsuitok?” And in reply, Taras
Bulba learned that Borodavka had been hung at Tolopan,
that Koloper had been flayed alive at Kizikirmen,
that Pidsuitok’s head had been salted and sent
in a cask to Constantinople. Old Bulba hung his
head and said thoughtfully, “They were good Cossacks.”
Chapter III. Taras Bulba
and his sons had been in the Setch about a week.
Ostap and Andrii occupied themselves but little with
the science of war. The Setch was not fond of
wasting time in warlike exercises. The young generation
learned these by experience alone, in the very heat
of battles, which were therefore incessant. The
Cossacks thought it a nuisance to fill up the intervals
of this instruction with any kind of drill, except
perhaps shooting at a mark, and on rare occasions with
horse-racing and wild-beast hunts on the steppes and
in the forests. All the rest of the time was
devoted to revelry a sign of the wide diffusion
of moral liberty. The whole of the Setch presented
an unusual scene: it was one unbroken revel;
a ball noisily begun, which had no end. Some busied
themselves with handicrafts; others kept little shops
and traded; but the majority caroused from morning
till night, if the wherewithal jingled in their pockets,
and if the booty they had captured had not already
passed into the hands of the shopkeepers and spirit-sellers.
This universal revelry had something fascinating about
it. It was not an assemblage of topers, who drank
to drown sorrow, but simply a wild revelry of joy.
Every one who came thither forgot everything, abandoned
everything which had hitherto interested him.
He, so to speak, spat upon his past and gave himself
recklessly up to freedom and the good-fellowship of
men of the same stamp as himself idlers
having neither relatives nor home nor family, nothing,
in short, save the free sky and the eternal revel
of their souls. This gave rise to that wild gaiety
which could not have sprung from any other source.
The tales and talk current among the assembled crowd,
reposing lazily on the ground, were often so droll,
and breathed such power of vivid narration, that it
required all the nonchalance of a Zaporozhetz to retain
his immovable expression, without even a twitch of
the moustache a feature which to this day
distinguishes the Southern Russian from his northern
brethren. It was drunken, noisy mirth; but there
was no dark ale-house where a man drowns thought in
stupefying intoxication: it was a dense throng
of schoolboys.
The only difference as regarded the
students was that, instead of sitting under the pointer
and listening to the worn-out doctrines of a teacher,
they practised racing with five thousand horses; instead
of the field where they had played ball, they had
the boundless borderlands, where at the sight of them
the Tatar showed his keen face and the Turk frowned
grimly from under his green turban. The difference
was that, instead of being forced to the companionship
of school, they themselves had deserted their fathers
and mothers and fled from their homes; that here were
those about whose neck a rope had already been wound,
and who, instead of pale death, had seen life, and
life in all its intensity; those who, from generous
habits, could never keep a coin in their pockets;
those who had thitherto regarded a ducat as wealth,
and whose pockets, thanks to the Jew revenue-farmers,
could have been turned wrong side out without any
danger of anything falling from them. Here were
students who could not endure the academic rod, and
had not carried away a single letter from the schools;
but with them were also some who knew about Horace,
Cicero, and the Roman Republic. There were many
leaders who afterwards distinguished themselves in
the king’s armies; and there were numerous clever
partisans who cherished a magnanimous conviction that
it was of no consequence where they fought, so long
as they did fight, since it was a disgrace to an honourable
man to live without fighting. There were many
who had come to the Setch for the sake of being able
to say afterwards that they had been there and were
therefore hardened warriors. But who was not
there? This strange republic was a necessary
outgrowth of the epoch. Lovers of a warlike life,
of golden beakers and rich brocades, of ducats
and gold pieces, could always find employment there.
The lovers of women alone could find naught, for no
woman dared show herself even in the suburbs of the
Setch.
It seemed exceedingly strange to Ostap
and Andrii that, although a crowd of people had come
to the Setch with them, not a soul inquired, “Whence
come these men? who are they? and what are their names?”
They had come thither as though returning to a home
whence they had departed only an hour before.
The new-comer merely presented himself to the Koschevoi,
or head chief of the Setch, who generally said, “Welcome!
Do you believe in Christ?” “I
do,” replied the new-comer. “And do
you believe in the Holy Trinity?” “I
do.” “And do you go to church?” “I
do.” “Now cross yourself.”
The new-comer crossed himself. “Very good,”
replied the Koschevoi; “enter the kuren
where you have most acquaintances.” This
concluded the ceremony. And all the Setch prayed
in one church, and were willing to defend it to their
last drop of blood, although they would not hearken
to aught about fasting or abstinence. Jews, Armenians,
and Tatars, inspired by strong avarice, took the
liberty of living and trading in the suburbs; for
the Zaporozhtzi never cared for bargaining, and paid
whatever money their hand chanced to grasp in their
pocket. Moreover, the lot of these gain-loving
traders was pitiable in the extreme. They resembled
people settled at the foot of Vesuvius; for when the
Zaporozhtzi lacked money, these bold adventurers broke
down their booths and took everything gratis.
The Setch consisted of over sixty kurens, each of
which greatly resembled a separate independent republic,
but still more a school or seminary of children, always
ready for anything. No one had any occupation;
no one retained anything for himself; everything was
in the hands of the hetman of the kuren,
who, on that account, generally bore the title of
“father.” In his hands were deposited
the money, clothes, all the provisions, oatmeal, grain,
even the firewood. They gave him money to take
care of. Quarrels amongst the inhabitants of
the kuren were not unfrequent; and in such cases
they proceeded at once to blows. The inhabitants
of the kuren swarmed into the square, and smote
each other with their fists, until one side had finally
gained the upper hand, when the revelry began.
Such was the Setch, which had such an attraction for
young men.
Ostap and Andrii flung themselves
into this sea of dissipation with all the ardour of
youth, forgot in a trice their father’s house,
the seminary, and all which had hitherto exercised
their minds, and gave themselves wholly up to their
new life. Everything interested them the
jovial habits of the Setch, and its chaotic morals
and laws, which even seemed to them too strict for
such a free republic. If a Cossack stole the
smallest trifle, it was considered a disgrace to the
whole Cossack community. He was bound to the
pillar of shame, and a club was laid beside him, with
which each passer-by was bound to deal him a blow until
in this manner he was beaten to death. He who
did not pay his debts was chained to a cannon, until
some one of his comrades should decide to ransom him
by paying his debts for him. But what made the
deepest impression on Andrii was the terrible punishment
decreed for murder. A hole was dug in his presence,
the murderer was lowered alive into it, and over him
was placed a coffin containing the body of the man
he had killed, after which the earth was thrown upon
both. Long afterwards the fearful ceremony of
this horrible execution haunted his mind, and the
man who had been buried alive appeared to him with
his terrible coffin.
Both the young Cossacks soon took
a good standing among their fellows. They often
sallied out upon the steppe with comrades from their
kuren, and sometimes too with the whole kuren
or with neighbouring kurens, to shoot the innumerable
steppe-birds of every sort, deer, and goats. Or
they went out upon the lakes, the river, and its tributaries
allotted to each kuren, to throw their nets and
draw out rich prey for the enjoyment of the whole
kuren. Although unversed in any trade exercised
by a Cossack, they were soon remarked among the other
youths for their obstinate bravery and daring in everything.
Skilfully and accurately they fired at the mark, and
swam the Dnieper against the current a
deed for which the novice was triumphantly received
into the circle of Cossacks.
But old Taras was planning a different
sphere of activity for them. Such an idle life
was not to his mind; he wanted active employment.
He reflected incessantly how to stir up the Setch
to some bold enterprise, wherein a man could revel
as became a warrior. At length he went one day
to the Koschevoi, and said plainly:
“Well, Koschevoi, it is time
for the Zaporozhtzi to set out.”
“There is nowhere for them to
go,” replied the Koschevoi, removing his short
pipe from his mouth and spitting to one side.
“What do you mean by nowhere?
We can go to Turkey or Tatary.”
“Impossible to go either to
Turkey or Tatary,” replied the Koschevoi, putting
his pipe coolly into his mouth again.
“Why impossible?”
“It is so; we have promised the Sultan peace.”
“But he is a Mussulman; and
God and the Holy Scriptures command us to slay Mussulmans.”
“We have no right. If we
had not sworn by our faith, it might be done; but
now it is impossible.”
“How is it impossible?
How can you say that we have no right? Here are
my two sons, both young men. Neither has been
to war; and you say that we have no right, and that
there is no need for the Zaporozhtzi to set out on
an expedition.”
“Well, it is not fitting.”
“Then it must be fitting that
Cossack strength should be wasted in vain, that a
man should disappear like a dog without having done
a single good deed, that he should be of no use to
his country or to Christianity! Why, then, do
we live? What the deuce do we live for? just tell
me that. You are a sensible man, you were not
chosen as Koschevoi without reason: so just tell
me what we live for?”
The Koschevoi made no reply to this
question. He was an obstinate Cossack. He
was silent for a while, and then said, “Anyway,
there will not be war.”
“There will not be war?” Taras asked again.
“No.”
“Then it is no use thinking about it?”
“It is not to be thought of.”
“Wait, you devil’s limb!”
said Taras to himself; “you shall learn to know
me!” and he at once resolved to have his revenge
on the Koschevoi.
Having made an agreement with several
others, he gave them liquor; and the drunken Cossacks
staggered into the square, where on a post hung the
kettledrums which were generally beaten to assemble
the people. Not finding the sticks, which were
kept by the drummer, they seized a piece of wood and
began to beat. The first to respond to the drum-beat
was the drummer, a tall man with but one eye, but
a frightfully sleepy one for all that.
“Who dares to beat the drum?” he shouted.
“Hold your tongue! take your
sticks, and beat when you are ordered!” replied
the drunken men.
The drummer at once took from his
pocket the sticks which he had brought with him, well
knowing the result of such proceedings. The drum
rattled, and soon black swarms of Cossacks began to
collect like bees in the square. All formed in
a ring; and at length, after the third summons, the
chiefs began to arrive the Koschevoi with
staff in hand, the symbol of his office; the judge
with the army-seal; the secretary with his ink-bottle;
and the osaul with his staff. The Koschevoi and
the chiefs took off their caps and bowed on all sides
to the Cossacks, who stood proudly with their arms
akimbo.
“What means this assemblage?
what do you wish, gentles?” said the Koschevoi.
Shouts and exclamations interrupted his speech.
“Resign your staff! resign your
staff this moment, you son of Satan! we will have
you no longer!” shouted some of the Cossacks
in the crowd. Some of the sober ones appeared
to wish to oppose this, but both sober and drunken
fell to blows. The shouting and uproar became
universal.
The Koschevoi attempted to speak;
but knowing that the self-willed multitude, if enraged,
might beat him to death, as almost always happened
in such cases, he bowed very low, laid down his staff,
and hid himself in the crowd.
“Do you command us, gentles,
to resign our insignia of office?” said the
judge, the secretary, and the osaul, as they prepared
to give up the ink-horn, army-seal, and staff, upon
the spot.
“No, you are to remain!”
was shouted from the crowd. “We only wanted
to drive out the Koschevoi because he is a woman, and
we want a man for Koschevoi.”
“Whom do you now elect as Koschevoi?”
asked the chiefs.
“We choose Kukubenko,” shouted some.
“We won’t have Kukubenko!”
screamed another party: “he is too young;
the milk has not dried off his lips yet.”
“Let Schilo be hetman!” shouted some:
“make Schilo our Koschevoi!”
“Away with your Schilo!”
yelled the crowd; “what kind of a Cossack is
he who is as thievish as a Tatar? To the devil
in a sack with your drunken Schilo!”
“Borodaty! let us make Borodaty our Koschevoi!”
“We won’t have Borodaty! To the evil
one’s mother with Borodaty!”
“Shout Kirdyanga!” whispered Taras Bulba
to several.
“Kirdyanga, Kirdyanga!”
shouted the crowd. “Borodaty, Borodaty!
Kirdyanga, Kirdyanga! Schilo! Away with Schilo!
Kirdyanga!”
All the candidates, on hearing their
names mentioned, quitted the crowd, in order not to
give any one a chance of supposing that they were
personally assisting in their election.
“Kirdyanga, Kirdyanga!” echoed more strongly
than the rest.
“Borodaty!”
They proceeded to decide the matter
by a show of hands, and Kirdyanga won.
“Fetch Kirdyanga!” they
shouted. Half a score of Cossacks immediately
left the crowd some of them hardly able
to keep their feet, to such an extent had they drunk and
went directly to Kirdyanga to inform him of his election.
Kirdyanga, a very old but wise Cossack,
had been sitting for some time in his kuren,
as if he knew nothing of what was going on.
“What is it, gentles? What do you wish?”
he inquired.
“Come, they have chosen you for Koschevoi.”
“Have mercy, gentles!”
said Kirdyanga. “How can I be worthy of
such honour? Why should I be made Koschevoi?
I have not sufficient capacity to fill such a post.
Could no better person be found in all the army?”
“Come, I say!” shouted
the Zaporozhtzi. Two of them seized him by the
arms; and in spite of his planting his feet firmly
they finally dragged him to the square, accompanying
his progress with shouts, blows from behind with their
fists, kicks, and exhortations. “Don’t
hold back, you son of Satan! Accept the honour,
you dog, when it is given!” In this manner Kirdyanga
was conducted into the ring of Cossacks.
“How now, gentles?” announced
those who had brought him, “are you agreed that
this Cossack shall be your Koschevoi?”
“We are all agreed!” shouted
the throng, and the whole plain trembled for a long
time afterwards from the shout.
One of the chiefs took the staff and
brought it to the newly elected Koschevoi. Kirdyanga,
in accordance with custom, immediately refused it.
The chief offered it a second time; Kirdyanga again
refused it, and then, at the third offer, accepted
the staff. A cry of approbation rang out from
the crowd, and again the whole plain resounded afar
with the Cossacks’ shout. Then there stepped
out from among the people the four oldest of them
all, white-bearded, white-haired Cossacks; though there
were no very old men in the Setch, for none of the
Zaporozhtzi ever died in their beds. Taking each
a handful of earth, which recent rain had converted
into mud, they laid it on Kirdyanga’s head.
The wet earth trickled down from his head on to his
moustache and cheeks and smeared his whole face.
But Kirdyanga stood immovable in his place, and thanked
the Cossacks for the honour shown him.
Thus ended the noisy election, concerning
which we cannot say whether it was as pleasing to
the others as it was to Bulba; by means of it he had
revenged himself on the former Koschevoi. Moreover,
Kirdyanga was an old comrade, and had been with him
on the same expeditions by sea and land, sharing the
toils and hardships of war. The crowd immediately
dispersed to celebrate the election, and such revelry
ensued as Ostap and Andrii had not yet beheld.
The taverns were attacked and mead, corn-brandy, and
beer seized without payment, the owners being only
too glad to escape with whole skins themselves.
The whole night passed amid shouts, songs, and rejoicings;
and the rising moon gazed long at troops of musicians
traversing the streets with guitars, flutes, tambourines,
and the church choir, who were kept in the Setch to
sing in church and glorify the deeds of the Zaporozhtzi.
At length drunkenness and fatigue began to overpower
even these strong heads, and here and there a Cossack
could be seen to fall to the ground, embracing a comrade
in fraternal fashion; whilst maudlin, and even weeping,
the latter rolled upon the earth with him. Here
a whole group would lie down in a heap; there a man
would choose the most comfortable position and stretch
himself out on a log of wood. The last, and strongest,
still uttered some incoherent speeches; finally even
they, yielding to the power of intoxication, flung
themselves down and all the Setch slept.
Chapter IV. But next day
Taras Bulba had a conference with the new Koschevoi
as to the method of exciting the Cossacks to some
enterprise. The Koschevoi, a shrewd and sensible
Cossack, who knew the Zaporozhtzi thoroughly, said
at first, “Oaths cannot be violated by any means”;
but after a pause added, “No matter, it can
be done. We will not violate them, but let us
devise something. Let the people assemble, not
at my summons, but of their own accord. You know
how to manage that; and I will hasten to the square
with the chiefs, as though we know nothing about it.”
Not an hour had elapsed after their
conversation, when the drums again thundered.
The drunken and senseless Cossacks assembled.
A myriad Cossack caps were sprinkled over the square.
A murmur arose, “Why? What? Why was
the assembly beaten?” No one answered. At
length, in one quarter and another, it began to be
rumoured about, “Behold, the Cossack strength
is being vainly wasted: there is no war!
Behold, our leaders have become as marmots, every
one; their eyes swim in fat! Plainly, there is
no justice in the world!” The other Cossacks
listened at first, and then began themselves to say,
“In truth, there is no justice in the world!”
Their leaders seemed surprised at these utterances.
Finally the Koschevoi stepped forward: “Permit
me, Cossacks, to address you.”
“Do so!”
“Touching the matter in question,
gentles, none know better than yourselves that many
Zaporozhtzi have run in debt to the Jew ale-house
keepers and to their brethren, so that now they have
not an atom of credit. Again, touching the matter
in question, there are many young fellows who have
no idea of what war is like, although you know, gentles,
that without war a young man cannot exist. How
make a Zaporozhetz out of him if he has never killed
a Mussulman?”
“He speaks well,” thought Bulba.
“Think not, however, gentles,
that I speak thus in order to break the truce; God
forbid! I merely mention it. Besides, it
is a shame to see what sort of church we have for
our God. Not only has the church remained without
exterior decoration during all the years which by God’s
mercy the Setch has stood, but up to this day even
the holy pictures have no adornments. No one
has even thought of making them a silver frame; they
have only received what some Cossacks have left them
in their wills; and these gifts were poor, since they
had drunk up nearly all they had during their lifetime.
I am making you this speech, therefore, not in order
to stir up a war against the Mussulmans; we have promised
the Sultan peace, and it would be a great sin in us
to break this promise, for we swore it on our law.”
“What is he mixing things up
like that for?” said Bulba to himself.
“So you see, gentles, that war
cannot be begun; honour does not permit it. But
according to my poor opinion, we might, I think, send
out a few young men in boats and let them plunder
the coasts of Anatolia a little. What do you
think, gentles?”
“Lead us, lead us all!”
shouted the crowd on all sides. “We are
ready to lay down our lives for our faith.”
The Koschevoi was alarmed. He
by no means wished to stir up all Zaporozhe; a breach
of the truce appeared to him on this occasion unsuitable.
“Permit me, gentles, to address you further.”
“Enough!” yelled the Cossacks;
“you can say nothing better.”
“If it must be so, then let
it be so. I am the slave of your will. We
know, and from Scripture too, that the voice of the
people is the voice of God. It is impossible
to devise anything better than the whole nation has
devised. But here lies the difficulty; you know,
gentles, that the Sultan will not permit that which
delights our young men to go unpunished. We should
be prepared at such a time, and our forces should
be fresh, and then we should fear no one. But
during their absence the Tatars may assemble
fresh forces; the dogs do not show themselves in sight
and dare not come while the master is at home, but
they can bite his heels from behind, and bite painfully
too. And if I must tell you the truth, we have
not boats enough, nor powder ready in sufficient quantity,
for all to go. But I am ready, if you please;
I am the slave of your will.”
The cunning hetman was silent.
The various groups began to discuss the matter, and
the hetmans of the kurens to take counsel together;
few were drunk fortunately, so they decided to listen
to reason.
A number of men set out at once for
the opposite shore of the Dnieper, to the treasury
of the army, where in strictest secrecy, under water
and among the reeds, lay concealed the army chest
and a portion of the arms captured from the enemy.
Others hastened to inspect the boats and prepare them
for service. In a twinkling the whole shore was
thronged with men. Carpenters appeared with axes
in their hands. Old, weatherbeaten, broad-shouldered,
strong-legged Zaporozhtzi, with black or silvered
moustaches, rolled up their trousers, waded up to their
knees in water, and dragged the boats on to the shore
with stout ropes; others brought seasoned timber and
all sorts of wood. The boats were freshly planked,
turned bottom upwards, caulked and tarred, and then
bound together side by side after Cossack fashion,
with long strands of reeds, so that the swell of the
waves might not sink them. Far along the shore
they built fires and heated tar in copper cauldrons
to smear the boats. The old and the experienced
instructed the young. The blows and shouts of
the workers rose all over the neighbourhood; the bank
shook and moved about.
About this time a large ferry-boat
began to near the shore. The mass of people standing
in it began to wave their hands from a distance.
They were Cossacks in torn, ragged gaberdines.
Their disordered garments, for many had on nothing
but their shirts, with a short pipe in their mouths,
showed that they had either escaped from some disaster
or had caroused to such an extent that they had drunk
up all they had on their bodies. A short, broad-shouldered
Cossack of about fifty stepped out from the midst
of them and stood in front. He shouted and waved
his hand more vigorously than any of the others; but
his words could not be heard for the cries and hammering
of the workmen.
“Whence come you!” asked
the Koschevoi, as the boat touched the shore.
All the workers paused in their labours, and, raising
their axes and chisels, looked on expectantly.
“From a misfortune!” shouted the short
Cossack.
“From what?”
“Permit me, noble Zaporozhtzi, to address you.”
“Speak!”
“Or would you prefer to assemble a council?”
“Speak, we are all here.”
The people all pressed together in one mass.
“Have you then heard nothing
of what has been going on in the hetman’s
dominions?”
“What is it?” inquired one of the kuren
hetmans.
“Eh! what! Evidently the
Tatars have plastered up your ears so that you
might hear nothing.”
“Tell us then; what has been going on there?”
“That is going on the like of
which no man born or christened ever yet has seen.”
“Tell us what it is, you son
of a dog!” shouted one of the crowd, apparently
losing patience.
“Things have come to such a
pass that our holy churches are no longer ours.”
“How not ours?”
“They are pledged to the Jews.
If the Jew is not first paid, there can be no mass.”
“What are you saying?”
“And if the dog of a Jew does
not make a sign with his unclean hand over the holy
Easter-bread, it cannot be consecrated.”
“He lies, brother gentles.
It cannot be that an unclean Jew puts his mark upon
the holy Easter-bread.”
“Listen! I have not yet
told all. Catholic priests are going about all
over the Ukraine in carts. The harm lies not in
the carts, but in the fact that not horses, but orthodox
Christians (1), are harnessed to them. Listen!
I have not yet told all. They say that the Jewesses
are making themselves petticoats out of our popes’
vestments. Such are the deeds that are taking
place in the Ukraine, gentles! And you sit here
revelling in Zaporozhe; and evidently the Tatars
have so scared you that you have no eyes, no ears,
no anything, and know nothing that is going on in
the world.”
(1) That is of the Greek Church. The Poles
were Catholics.
“Stop, stop!” broke in
the Koschevoi, who up to that moment had stood with
his eyes fixed upon the earth like all Zaporozhtzi,
who, on important occasions, never yielded to their
first impulse, but kept silence, and meanwhile concentrated
inwardly all the power of their indignation.
“Stop! I also have a word to say. But
what were you about? When your father the devil
was raging thus, what were you doing yourselves?
Had you no swords? How came you to permit such
lawlessness?”
“Eh! how did we come to permit
such lawlessness? You would have tried when there
were fifty thousand of the Lyakhs (2) alone; yes, and
it is a shame not to be concealed, when there are
also dogs among us who have already accepted their
faith.”
(2) Lyakhs, an opprobrious name for the Poles.
“But your hetman and your leaders, what
have they done?”
“God preserve any one from such deeds as our
leaders performed!”
“How so?”
“Our hetman, roasted in
a brazen ox, now lies in Warsaw; and the heads and
hands of our leaders are being carried to all the fairs
as a spectacle for the people. That is what our
leaders did.”
The whole throng became wildly excited.
At first silence reigned all along the shore, like
that which precedes a tempest; and then suddenly voices
were raised and all the shore spoke:
“What! The Jews hold the
Christian churches in pledge! Roman Catholic
priests have harnessed and beaten orthodox Christians!
What! such torture has been permitted on Russian soil
by the cursed unbelievers! And they have done
such things to the leaders and the hetman?
Nay, this shall not be, it shall not be.”
Such words came from all quarters. The Zaporozhtzi
were moved, and knew their power. It was not the
excitement of a giddy-minded folk. All who were
thus agitated were strong, firm characters, not easily
aroused, but, once aroused, preserving their inward
heat long and obstinately. “Hang all the
Jews!” rang through the crowd. “They
shall not make petticoats for their Jewesses out of
popes’ vestments! They shall not place
their signs upon the holy wafers! Drown all the
heathens in the Dnieper!” These words uttered
by some one in the throng flashed like lightning through
all minds, and the crowd flung themselves upon the
suburb with the intention of cutting the throats of
all the Jews.
The poor sons of Israel, losing all
presence of mind, and not being in any case courageous,
hid themselves in empty brandy-casks, in ovens, and
even crawled under the skirts of their Jewesses; but
the Cossacks found them wherever they were.
“Gracious nobles!” shrieked
one Jew, tall and thin as a stick, thrusting his sorry
visage, distorted with terror, from among a group of
his comrades, “gracious nobles! suffer us to
say a word, only one word. We will reveal to
you what you never yet have heard, a thing more important
than I can say very important!”
“Well, say it,” said Bulba,
who always liked to hear what an accused man had to
say.
“Gracious nobles,” exclaimed
the Jew, “such nobles were never seen, by heavens,
never! Such good, kind, and brave men there never
were in the world before!” His voice died away
and quivered with fear. “How was it possible
that we should think any evil of the Zaporozhtzi?
Those men are not of us at all, those who have taken
pledges in the Ukraine. By heavens, they are
not of us! They are not Jews at all. The
evil one alone knows what they are; they are only
fit to be spit upon and cast aside. Behold, my
brethren, say the same! Is it not true, Schloma?
is it not true, Schmul?”
“By heavens, it is true!”
replied Schloma and Schmul, from among the crowd,
both pale as clay, in their ragged caps.
“We never yet,” continued
the tall Jew, “have had any secret intercourse
with your enemies, and we will have nothing to do with
Catholics; may the evil one fly away with them!
We are like own brothers to the Zaporozhtzi.”
“What! the Zaporozhtzi are brothers
to you!” exclaimed some one in the crowd.
“Don’t wait! the cursed Jews! Into
the Dnieper with them, gentles! Drown all the
unbelievers!”
These words were the signal.
They seized the Jews by the arms and began to hurl
them into the waves. Pitiful cries resounded on
all sides; but the stern Zaporozhtzi only laughed
when they saw the Jewish legs, cased in shoes and
stockings, struggling in the air. The poor orator
who had called down destruction upon himself jumped
out of the caftan, by which they had seized him, and
in his scant parti-coloured under waistcoat clasped
Bulba’s legs, and cried, in piteous tones, “Great
lord! gracious noble! I knew your brother, the
late Doroscha. He was a warrior who was an ornament
to all knighthood. I gave him eight hundred sequins
when he was obliged to ransom himself from the Turks.”
“You knew my brother?” asked Taras.
“By heavens, I knew him. He was a magnificent
nobleman.”
“And what is your name?”
“Yankel.”
“Good,” said Taras; and
after reflecting, he turned to the Cossacks and spoke
as follows: “There will always be plenty
of time to hang the Jew, if it proves necessary; but
for to-day give him to me.”
So saying, Taras led him to his waggon,
beside which stood his Cossacks. “Crawl
under the waggon; lie down, and do not move. And
you, brothers, do not surrender this Jew.”
So saying, he returned to the square,
for the whole crowd had long since collected there.
All had at once abandoned the shore and the preparation
of the boats; for a land-journey now awaited them,
and not a sea-voyage, and they needed horses and waggons,
not ships. All, both young and old, wanted to
go on the expedition; and it was decided, on the advice
of the chiefs, the hetmans of the kurens, and
the Koschevoi, and with the approbation of the whole
Zaporozhtzian army, to march straight to Poland, to
avenge the injury and disgrace to their faith and to
Cossack renown, to seize booty from the cities, to
burn villages and grain, and spread their glory far
over the steppe. All at once girded and armed
themselves. The Koschevoi grew a whole foot taller.
He was no longer the timid executor of the restless
wishes of a free people, but their untrammelled master.
He was a despot, who know only to command. All
the independent and pleasure-loving warriors stood
in an orderly line, with respectfully bowed heads,
not venturing to raise their eyes, when the Koschevoi
gave his orders. He gave these quietly, without
shouting and without haste, but with pauses between,
like an experienced man deeply learned in Cossack
affairs, and carrying into execution, not for the
first time, a wisely matured enterprise.
“Examine yourselves, look well
to yourselves; examine all your equipments thoroughly,”
he said; “put your teams and your tar-boxes (3)
in order; test your weapons. Take not many clothes
with you: a shirt and a couple of pairs of trousers
to each Cossack, and a pot of oatmeal and millet apiece let
no one take any more. There will be plenty of
provisions, all that is needed, in the waggons.
Let every Cossack have two horses. And two hundred
yoke of oxen must be taken, for we shall require them
at the fords and marshy places. Keep order, gentles,
above all things. I know that there are some
among you whom God has made so greedy that they would
like to tear up silk and velvet for foot-cloths.
Leave off such devilish habits; reject all garments
as plunder, and take only weapons: though if
valuables offer themselves, ducats or silver,
they are useful in any case. I tell you this beforehand,
gentles, if any one gets drunk on the expedition,
he will have a short shrift: I will have him
dragged by the neck like a dog behind the baggage waggons,
no matter who he may be, even were he the most heroic
Cossack in the whole army; he shall be shot on the
spot like a dog, and flung out, without sepulture,
to be torn by the birds of prey, for a drunkard on
the march deserves no Christian burial. Young
men, obey the old men in all things! If a ball
grazes you, or a sword cuts your head or any other
part, attach no importance to such trifles. Mix
a charge of powder in a cup of brandy, quaff it heartily,
and all will pass off you will not even
have any fever; and if the wound is large, put simple
earth upon it, mixing it first with spittle in your
palm, and that will dry it up. And now to work,
to work, lads, and look well to all, and without haste.”
(3) The Cossack waggons have their axles smeared
with tar instead of
grease.
So spoke the Koschevoi; and no sooner
had he finished his speech than all the Cossacks at
once set to work. All the Setch grew sober.
Nowhere was a single drunken man to be found, it was
as though there never had been such a thing among
the Cossacks. Some attended to the tyres of the
wheels, others changed the axles of the waggons; some
carried sacks of provisions to them or leaded them
with arms; others again drove up the horses and oxen.
On all sides resounded the tramp of horses’ hoofs,
test-shots from the guns, the clank of swords, the
lowing of oxen, the screech of rolling waggons, talking,
sharp cries and urging-on of cattle. Soon the
Cossack force spread far over all the plain; and he
who might have undertaken to run from its van to its
rear would have had a long course. In the little
wooden church the priest was offering up prayers and
sprinkling all worshippers with holy water. All
kissed the cross. When the camp broke up and
the army moved out of the Setch, all the Zaporozhtzi
turned their heads back. “Farewell, our
mother!” they said almost in one breath.
“May God preserve thee from all misfortune!”
As he passed through the suburb, Taras
Bulba saw that his Jew, Yankel, had already erected
a sort of booth with an awning, and was selling flint,
screwdrivers, powder, and all sorts of military stores
needed on the road, even to rolls and bread.
“What devils these Jews are!” thought
Taras; and riding up to him, he said, “Fool,
why are you sitting here? do you want to be shot like
a crow?”
Yankel in reply approached nearer,
and making a sign with both hands, as though wishing
to impart some secret, said, “Let the noble lord
but keep silence and say nothing to any one.
Among the Cossack waggons is a waggon of mine.
I am carrying all sorts of needful stores for the
Cossacks, and on the journey I will furnish every sort
of provisions at a lower price than any Jew ever sold
at before. ’Tis so, by heavens! by heavens,
’tis so!”
Taras Bulba shrugged his shoulders
in amazement at the Jewish nature, and went on to
the camp.
Chapter V. All South-west Poland
speedily became a prey to fear. Everywhere the
rumour flew, “The Zaporozhtzi! The Zaporozhtzi
have appeared!” All who could flee did so.
All rose and scattered after the manner of that lawless,
reckless age, when they built neither fortresses nor
castles, but each man erected a temporary dwelling
of straw wherever he happened to find himself.
He thought, “It is useless to waste money and
labour on an izba, when the roving Tatars will
carry it off in any case.” All was in an
uproar: one exchanged his plough and oxen for
a horse and gun, and joined an armed band; another,
seeking concealment, drove off his cattle and carried
off all the household stuff he could. Occasionally,
on the road, some were encountered who met their visitors
with arms in their hands; but the majority fled before
their arrival. All knew that it was hard to deal
with the raging and warlike throng known by the name
of the Zaporozhian army; a body which, under its independent
and disorderly exterior, concealed an organisation
well calculated for times of battle. The horsemen
rode steadily on without overburdening or heating their
horses; the foot-soldiers marched only by night, resting
during the day, and selecting for this purpose desert
tracts, uninhabited spots, and forests, of which there
were then plenty. Spies and scouts were sent
ahead to study the time, place, and method of attack.
And lo! the Zaporozhtzi suddenly appeared in those
places where they were least expected: then all
were put to the sword; the villages were burned; and
the horses and cattle which were not driven off behind
the army killed upon the spot. They seemed to
be fiercely revelling, rather than carrying out a
military expedition. Our hair would stand on end
nowadays at the horrible traits of that fierce, half-civilised
age, which the Zaporozhtzi everywhere exhibited:
children killed, women’s breasts cut open, the
skin flayed from the legs up to the knees, and the
victim then set at liberty. In short, the Cossacks
paid their former debts in coin of full weight.
The abbot of one monastery, on hearing of their approach,
sent two monks to say that they were not behaving as
they should; that there was an agreement between the
Zaporozhtzi and the government; that they were breaking
faith with the king, and violating all international
rights. “Tell your bishop from me and from
all the Zaporozhtzi,” said the Koschevoi, “that
he has nothing to fear: the Cossacks, so far,
have only lighted and smoked their pipes.”
And the magnificent abbey was soon wrapped in the
devouring flames, its tall Gothic windows showing
grimly through the waves of fire as they parted.
The fleeing mass of monks, women, and Jews thronged
into those towns where any hope lay in the garrison
and the civic forces. The aid sent in season
by the government, but delayed on the way, consisted
of a few troops which either were unable to enter
the towns or, seized with fright, turned their backs
at the very first encounter and fled on their swift
horses. However, several of the royal commanders,
who had conquered in former battles, resolved to unite
their forces and confront the Zaporozhtzi.
And here, above all, did our young
Cossacks, disgusted with pillage, greed, and a feeble
foe, and burning with the desire to distinguish themselves
in presence of their chiefs, seek to measure themselves
in single combat with the warlike and boastful Lyakhs,
prancing on their spirited horses, with the sleeves
of their jackets thrown back and streaming in the
wind. This game was inspiriting; they won at it
many costly sets of horse-trappings and valuable weapons.
In a month the scarcely fledged birds attained their
full growth, were completely transformed, and became
men; their features, in which hitherto a trace of
youthful softness had been visible, grew strong and
grim. But it was pleasant to old Taras to see
his sons among the foremost. It seemed as though
Ostap were designed by nature for the game of war and
the difficult science of command. Never once
losing his head or becoming confused under any circumstances,
he could, with a cool audacity almost supernatural
in a youth of two-and-twenty, in an instant gauge the
danger and the whole scope of the matter, could at
once devise a means of escaping, but of escaping only
that he might the more surely conquer. His movements
now began to be marked by the assurance which comes
from experience, and in them could be detected the
germ of the future leader. His person strengthened,
and his bearing grew majestically leonine. “What
a fine leader he will make one of these days!”
said old Taras. “He will make a splendid
leader, far surpassing even his father!”
Andrii gave himself up wholly to the
enchanting music of blades and bullets. He knew
not what it was to consider, or calculate, or to measure
his own as against the enemy’s strength.
He gazed on battle with mad delight and intoxication:
he found something festal in the moments when a man’s
brain burns, when all things wave and flutter before
his eyes, when heads are stricken off, horses fall
to the earth with a sound of thunder, and he rides
on like a drunken man, amid the whistling of bullets
and the flashing of swords, dealing blows to all, and
heeding not those aimed at himself. More than
once their father marvelled too at Andrii, seeing
him, stirred only by a flash of impulse, dash at something
which a sensible man in cold blood never would have
attempted, and, by the sheer force of his mad attack,
accomplish such wonders as could not but amaze even
men grown old in battle. Old Taras admired and
said, “And he too will make a good warrior if
the enemy does not capture him meanwhile. He
is not Ostap, but he is a dashing warrior, nevertheless.”
The army decided to march straight
on the city of Dubno, which, rumour said, contained
much wealth and many rich inhabitants. The journey
was accomplished in a day and a half, and the Zaporozhtzi
appeared before the city. The inhabitants resolved
to defend themselves to the utmost extent of their
power, and to fight to the last extremity, preferring
to die in their squares and streets, and on their
thresholds, rather than admit the enemy to their houses.
A high rampart of earth surrounded the city; and in
places where it was low or weak, it was strengthened
by a wall of stone, or a house which served as a redoubt,
or even an oaken stockade. The garrison was strong
and aware of the importance of their position.
The Zaporozhtzi attacked the wall fiercely, but were
met with a shower of grapeshot. The citizens
and residents of the town evidently did not wish to
remain idle, but gathered on the ramparts; in their
eyes could be read desperate resistance. The
women too were determined to take part in the fray,
and upon the heads of the Zaporozhians rained down
stones, casks of boiling water, and sacks of lime which
blinded them. The Zaporozhtzi were not fond of
having anything to do with fortified places:
sieges were not in their line. The Koschevoi ordered
them to retreat, saying, “It is useless, brother
gentles; we will retire: but may I be a heathen
Tatar, and not a Christian, if we do not clear them
out of that town! may they all perish of hunger, the
dogs!” The army retreated, surrounded the town,
and, for lack of something to do, busied themselves
with devastating the surrounding country, burning
the neighbouring villages and the ricks of unthreshed
grain, and turning their droves of horses loose in
the cornfields, as yet untouched by the reaping-hook,
where the plump ears waved, fruit, as luck would have
it, of an unusually good harvest which should have
liberally rewarded all tillers of the soil that season.
With horror those in the city beheld
their means of subsistence destroyed. Meanwhile
the Zaporozhtzi, having formed a double ring of their
waggons around the city, disposed themselves as in
the Setch in kurens, smoked their pipes, bartered
their booty for weapons, played at leapfrog and odd-and-even,
and gazed at the city with deadly cold-bloodedness.
At night they lighted their camp fires, and the cooks
boiled the porridge for each kuren in huge copper
cauldrons; whilst an alert sentinel watched all night
beside the blazing fire. But the Zaporozhtzi
soon began to tire of inactivity and prolonged sobriety,
unaccompanied by any fighting. The Koschevoi even
ordered the allowance of wine to be doubled, which
was sometimes done in the army when no difficult enterprises
or movements were on hand. The young men, and
Taras Bulba’s sons in particular, did not like
this life. Andrii was visibly bored. “You
silly fellow!” said Taras to him, “be patient,
you will be hetman one day. He is not a
good warrior who loses heart in an important enterprise;
but he who is not tired even of inactivity, who endures
all, and who even if he likes a thing can give it up.”
But hot youth cannot agree with age; the two have
different natures, and look at the same thing with
different eyes.
But in the meantime Taras’s
band, led by Tovkatch, arrived; with him were also
two osauls, the secretary, and other regimental officers:
the Cossacks numbered over four thousand in all.
There were among them many volunteers, who had risen
of their own free will, without any summons, as soon
as they had heard what the matter was. The osauls
brought to Taras’s sons the blessing of their
aged mother, and to each a picture in a cypress-wood
frame from the Mezhigorski monastery at Kief.
The two brothers hung the pictures round their necks,
and involuntarily grew pensive as they remembered
their old mother. What did this blessing prophecy?
Was it a blessing for their victory over the enemy,
and then a joyous return to their home with booty
and glory, to be everlastingly commemorated in the
songs of guitar-players? or was it...? But the
future is unknown, and stands before a man like autumnal
fogs rising from the swamps; birds fly foolishly up
and down in it with flapping wings, never recognising
each other, the dove seeing not the vulture, nor the
vulture the dove, and no one knowing how far he may
be flying from destruction.
Ostap had long since attended to his
duties and gone to the kuren. Andrii, without
knowing why, felt a kind of oppression at his heart.
The Cossacks had finished their evening meal; the
wonderful July night had completely fallen; still
he did not go to the kuren, nor lie down to sleep,
but gazed unconsciously at the whole scene before him.
In the sky innumerable stars twinkled brightly.
The plain was covered far and wide with scattered
waggons with swinging tar-buckets, smeared with tar,
and loaded with every description of goods and provisions
captured from the foe. Beside the waggons, under
the waggons, and far beyond the waggons, Zaporozhtzi
were everywhere visible, stretched upon the grass.
They all slumbered in picturesque attitudes; one had
thrust a sack under his head, another his cap, and
another simply made use of his comrade’s side.
Swords, guns, matchlocks, short pipe-stems with copper
mountings, iron awls, and a flint and steel were inseparable
from every Cossack. The heavy oxen lay with their
feet doubled under them like huge whitish masses,
and at a distance looked like gray stones scattered
on the slopes of the plain. On all sides the
heavy snores of sleeping warriors began to arise from
the grass, and were answered from the plain by the
ringing neighs of their steeds, chafing at their hobbled
feet. Meanwhile a certain threatening magnificence
had mingled with the beauty of the July night.
It was the distant glare of the burning district afar.
In one place the flames spread quietly and grandly
over the sky; in another, suddenly bursting into a
whirlwind, they hissed and flew upwards to the very
stars, and floating fragments died away in the most
distant quarter of the heavens. Here the black,
burned monastery like a grim Carthusian monk stood
threatening, and displaying its dark magnificence
at every flash; there blazed the monastery garden.
It seemed as though the trees could be heard hissing
as they stood wrapped in smoke; and when the fire
burst forth, it suddenly lighted up the ripe plums
with a phosphoric lilac-coloured gleam, or turned the
yellowing pears here and there to pure gold.
In the midst of them hung black against the wall of
the building, or the trunk of a tree, the body of
some poor Jew or monk who had perished in the flames
with the structure. Above the distant fires hovered
a flock of birds, like a cluster of tiny black crosses
upon a fiery field. The town thus laid bare seemed
to sleep; the spires and roofs, and its palisade and
walls, gleamed quietly in the glare of the distant
conflagrations. Andrii went the rounds of the
Cossack ranks. The camp-fires, beside which the
sentinels sat, were ready to go out at any moment;
and even the sentinels slept, having devoured oatmeal
and dumplings with true Cossack appetites. He
was astonished at such carelessness, thinking, “It
is well that there is no strong enemy at hand and
nothing to fear.” Finally he went to one
of the waggons, climbed into it, and lay down upon
his back, putting his clasped hands under his head;
but he could not sleep, and gazed long at the sky.
It was all open before him; the air was pure and transparent;
the dense clusters of stars in the Milky Way, crossing
the sky like a belt, were flooded with light.
From time to time Andrii in some degree lost consciousness,
and a light mist of dream veiled the heavens from
him for a moment; but then he awoke, and they became
visible again.
During one of these intervals it seemed
to him that some strange human figure flitted before
him. Thinking it to be merely a vision which would
vanish at once, he opened his eyes, and beheld a withered,
emaciated face bending over him, and gazing straight
into his own. Long coal-black hair, unkempt,
dishevelled, fell from beneath a dark veil which had
been thrown over the head; whilst the strange gleam
of the eyes, and the death-like tone of the sharp-cut
features, inclined him to think that it was an apparition.
His hand involuntarily grasped his gun; and he exclaimed
almost convulsively: “Who are you?
If you are an evil spirit, avaunt! If you are
a living being, you have chosen an ill time for your
jest. I will kill you with one shot.”
In answer to this, the apparition
laid its finger upon its lips and seemed to entreat
silence. He dropped his hands and began to look
more attentively. He recognised it to be a woman
from the long hair, the brown neck, and the half-concealed
bosom. But she was not a native of those regions:
her wide cheek-bones stood out prominently over her
hollow cheeks; her small eyes were obliquely set.
The more he gazed at her features, the more he found
them familiar. Finally he could restrain himself
no longer, and said, “Tell me, who are you?
It seems to me that I know you, or have seen you somewhere.”
“Two years ago in Kief.”
“Two years ago in Kief!”
repeated Andrii, endeavouring to collect in his mind
all that lingered in his memory of his former student
life. He looked intently at her once more, and
suddenly exclaimed at the top of his voice, “You
are the Tatar! the servant of the lady, the Waiwode’s
daughter!”
“Sh!” cried the Tatar,
clasping her hands with a supplicating glance, trembling
all over, and turning her head round in order to see
whether any one had been awakened by Andrii’s
loud exclamation.
“Tell me, tell me, why are you
here?” said Andrii almost breathlessly, in a
whisper, interrupted every moment by inward emotion.
“Where is the lady? is she alive?”
“She is now in the city.”
“In the city!” he exclaimed,
again almost in a shriek, and feeling all the blood
suddenly rush to his heart. “Why is she
in the city?”
“Because the old lord himself
is in the city: he has been Waiwode of Dubno
for the last year and a half.”
“Is she married? How strange you are!
Tell me about her.”
“She has eaten nothing for two days.”
“What!”
“And not one of the inhabitants
has had a morsel of bread for a long while; all have
long been eating earth.”
Andrii was astounded.
“The lady saw you from the city
wall, among the Zaporozhtzi. She said to me,
’Go tell the warrior: if he remembers me,
let him come to me; and do not forget to make him
give you a bit of bread for my aged mother, for I
do not wish to see my mother die before my very eyes.
Better that I should die first, and she afterwards!
Beseech him; clasp his knees, his feet: he also
has an aged mother, let him give you the bread for
her sake!’”
Many feelings awoke in the young Cossack’s breast.
“But how came you here? how did you get here?”
“By an underground passage.”
“Is there an underground passage?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“You will not betray it, warrior?”
“I swear it by the holy cross!”
“You descend into a hole, and cross the brook,
yonder among the reeds.”
“And it leads into the city?”
“Straight into the monastery.”
“Let us go, let us go at once.”
“A bit of bread, in the name of Christ and of
His holy mother!”
“Good, so be it. Stand
here beside the waggon, or, better still, lie down
in it: no one will see you, all are asleep.
I will return at once.”
And he set off for the baggage waggons,
which contained the provisions belonging to their
kuren. His heart beat. All the past,
all that had been extinguished by the Cossack bivouacks,
and by the stern battle of life, flamed out at once
on the surface and drowned the present in its turn.
Again, as from the dark depths of the sea, the noble
lady rose before him: again there gleamed in
his memory her beautiful arms, her eyes, her laughing
mouth, her thick dark-chestnut hair, falling in curls
upon her shoulders, and the firm, well-rounded limbs
of her maiden form. No, they had not been extinguished
in his breast, they had not vanished, they had simply
been laid aside, in order, for a time, to make way
for other strong emotions; but often, very often,
the young Cossack’s deep slumber had been troubled
by them, and often he had lain sleepless on his couch,
without being able to explain the cause.
His heart beat more violently at the
thought of seeing her again, and his young knees shook.
On reaching the baggage waggons, he had quite forgotten
what he had come for; he raised his hand to his brow
and rubbed it long, trying to recollect what he was
to do. At length he shuddered, and was filled
with terror as the thought suddenly occurred to him
that she was dying of hunger. He jumped upon the
waggon and seized several large loaves of black bread;
but then he thought, “Is this not food, suited
to a robust and easily satisfied Zaporozhetz, too
coarse and unfit for her delicate frame?” Then
he recollected that the Koschevoi, on the previous
evening, had reproved the cooks for having cooked
up all the oatmeal into porridge at once, when there
was plenty for three times. Sure that he would
find plenty of porridge in the kettles, he drew out
his father’s travelling kettle and went with
it to the cook of their kuren, who was sleeping
beside two big cauldrons, holding about ten pailfuls,
under which the ashes still glowed. Glancing
into them, he was amazed to find them empty. It
must have required supernatural powers to eat it all;
the more so, as their kuren numbered fewer than
the others. He looked into the cauldron of the
other kurens nothing anywhere. Involuntarily
the saying recurred to his mind, “The Zaporozhtzi
are like children: if there is little they eat
it, if there is much they leave nothing.”
What was to be done? There was, somewhere in
the waggon belonging to his father’s band, a
sack of white bread, which they had found when they
pillaged the bakery of the monastery. He went
straight to his father’s waggon, but it was not
there. Ostap had taken it and put it under his
head; and there he lay, stretched out on the ground,
snoring so that the whole plain rang again. Andrii
seized the sack abruptly with one hand and gave it
a jerk, so that Ostap’s head fell to the ground.
The elder brother sprang up in his sleep, and, sitting
there with closed eyes, shouted at the top of his
lungs, “Stop them! Stop the cursed Lyakhs!
Catch the horses! catch the horses!” “Silence!
I’ll kill you,” shouted Andrii in terror,
flourishing the sack over him. But Ostap did not
continue his speech, sank down again, and gave such
a snore that the grass on which he lay waved with
his breath.
Andrii glanced timidly on all sides
to see if Ostap’s talking in his sleep had waked
any of the Cossacks. Only one long-locked head
was raised in the adjoining kuren, and after
glancing about, was dropped back on the ground.
After waiting a couple of minutes he set out with
his load. The Tatar woman was lying where he had
left her, scarcely breathing. “Come, rise
up. Fear not, all are sleeping. Can you take
one of these loaves if I cannot carry all?”
So saying, he swung the sack on to his back, pulled
out another sack of millet as he passed the waggon,
took in his hands the loaves he had wanted to give
the Tatar woman to carry, and, bending somewhat under
the load, went boldly through the ranks of sleeping
Zaporozhtzi.
“Andrii,” said old Bulba,
as he passed. His heart died within him.
He halted, trembling, and said softly, “What
is it?”
“There’s a woman with
you. When I get up I’ll give you a sound
thrashing. Women will lead you to no good.”
So saying, he leaned his hand upon his hand and gazed
intently at the muffled form of the Tatar.
Andrii stood there, more dead than
alive, not daring to look in his father’s face.
When he did raise his eyes and glance at him, old Bulba
was asleep, with his head still resting in the palm
of his hand.
Andrii crossed himself. Fear
fled from his heart even more rapidly than it had
assailed it. When he turned to look at the Tatar
woman, she stood before him, muffled in her mantle,
like a dark granite statue, and the gleam of the distant
dawn lighted up only her eyes, dull as those of a
corpse. He plucked her by the sleeve, and both
went on together, glancing back continually.
At length they descended the slope of a small ravine,
almost a hole, along the bottom of which a brook flowed
lazily, overgrown with sedge, and strewed with mossy
boulders. Descending into this ravine, they were
completely concealed from the view of all the plain
occupied by the Zaporovian camp. At least Andrii,
glancing back, saw that the steep slope rose behind
him higher than a man. On its summit appeared
a few blades of steppe-grass; and behind them, in the
sky, hung the moon, like a golden sickle. The
breeze rising on the steppe warned them that the dawn
was not far off. But nowhere was the crow of
the cock heard. Neither in the city nor in the
devastated neighbourhood had there been a cock for
a long time past. They crossed the brook on a
small plank, beyond which rose the opposite bank, which
appeared higher than the one behind them and rose steeply.
It seemed as though this were the strong point of
the citadel upon which the besieged could rely; at
all events, the earthen wall was lower there, and no
garrison appeared behind it. But farther on rose
the thick monastery walls. The steep bank was
overgrown with steppe-grass, and in the narrow ravine
between it and the brook grew tall reeds almost as
high as a man. At the summit of the bank were
the remains of a wattled fence, which had formerly
surrounded some garden, and in front of it were visible
the wide leaves of the burdock, from among which rose
blackthorn, and sunflowers lifting their heads high
above all the rest. Here the Tatar flung off
her slippers and went barefoot, gathering her clothes
up carefully, for the spot was marshy and full of
water. Forcing their way among the reeds, they
stopped before a ruined outwork. Skirting this
outwork, they found a sort of earthen arch an
opening not much larger than the opening of an oven.
The Tatar woman bent her head and went first.
Andrii followed, bending low as he could, in order
to pass with his sacks; and both soon found themselves
in total darkness.
Chapter VI. Andrii could
hardly move in the dark and narrow earthen burrow,
as he followed the Tatar, dragging after him his sacks
of bread. “It will soon be light,”
said his guide: “we are approaching the
spot where I placed a light.” And in fact
the dark earthen walls began to be gradually lit up.
They reached a widening in the passage where, it seemed,
there had once been a chapel; at least, there was
a small table against the wall, like an altar, and
above, the faded, almost entirely obliterated picture
of a Catholic Madonna. A small silver lamp hanging
before it barely illumined it. The Tatar stooped
and picked up from the ground a copper candlestick
which she had left there, a candlestick with a tall,
slender stem, and snuffers, pin, and extinguisher
hanging about it on chains. She lighted it at
the silver lamp. The light grew stronger; and
as they went on, now illumined by it, and again enveloped
in pitchy shadow, they suggested a picture by Gerard
Dow.
The warrior’s fresh, handsome
countenance, overflowing with health and youth, presented
a strong contrast to the pale, emaciated face of his
companion. The passage grew a little higher, so
that Andrii could hold himself erect. He gazed
with curiosity at the earthen walls. Here and
there, as in the catacombs at Kief, were niches in
the walls; and in some places coffins were standing.
Sometimes they came across human bones which had become
softened with the dampness and were crumbling into
dust. It was evident that pious folk had taken
refuge here from the storms, sorrows, and seductions
of the world. It was extremely damp in some places;
indeed there was water under their feet at intervals.
Andrii was forced to halt frequently to allow his companion
to rest, for her fatigue kept increasing. The
small piece of bread she had swallowed only caused
a pain in her stomach, of late unused to food; and
she often stood motionless for minutes together in
one spot.
At length a small iron door appeared
before them. “Glory be to God, we have
arrived!” said the Tatar in a faint voice, and
tried to lift her hand to knock, but had no strength
to do so. Andrii knocked hard at the door in
her stead. There was an echo as though a large
space lay beyond the door; then the echo changed as
if resounding through lofty arches. In a couple
of minutes, keys rattled, and steps were heard descending
some stairs. At length the door opened, and a
monk, standing on the narrow stairs with the key and
a light in his hands, admitted them. Andrii involuntarily
halted at the sight of a Catholic monk one
of those who had aroused such hate and disdain among
the Cossacks that they treated them even more inhumanly
than they treated the Jews.
The monk, on his part, started back
on perceiving a Zaporovian Cossack, but a whisper
from the Tatar reassured him. He lighted them
in, fastened the door behind them, and led them up
the stairs. They found themselves beneath the
dark and lofty arches of the monastery church.
Before one of the altars, adorned with tall candlesticks
and candles, knelt a priest praying quietly.
Near him on each side knelt two young choristers in
lilac cassocks and white lace stoles, with censers
in their hands. He prayed for the performance
of a miracle, that the city might be saved; that their
souls might be strengthened; that patience might be
given them; that doubt and timid, weak-spirited mourning
over earthly misfortunes might be banished. A
few women, resembling shadows, knelt supporting themselves
against the backs of the chairs and dark wooden benches
before them, and laying their exhausted heads upon
them. A few men stood sadly, leaning against
the columns upon which the wide arches rested.
The stained-glass window above the altar suddenly glowed
with the rosy light of dawn; and from it, on the floor,
fell circles of blue, yellow, and other colours, illuminating
the dim church. The whole altar was lighted up;
the smoke from the censers hung a cloudy rainbow in
the air. Andrii gazed from his dark corner, not
without surprise, at the wonders worked by the light.
At that moment the magnificent swell of the organ
filled the whole church. It grew deeper and deeper,
expanded, swelled into heavy bursts of thunder; and
then all at once, turning into heavenly music, its
ringing tones floated high among the arches, like
clear maiden voices, and again descended into a deep
roar and thunder, and then ceased. The thunderous
pulsations echoed long and tremulously among the arches;
and Andrii, with half-open mouth, admired the wondrous
music.
Then he felt some one plucking the
shirt of his caftan. “It is time,”
said the Tatar. They traversed the church unperceived,
and emerged upon the square in front. Dawn had
long flushed the heavens; all announced sunrise.
The square was empty: in the middle of it still
stood wooden pillars, showing that, perhaps only a
week before, there had been a market here stocked
with provisions. The streets, which were unpaved,
were simply a mass of dried mud. The square was
surrounded by small, one-storied stone or mud houses,
in the walls of which were visible wooden stakes and
posts obliquely crossed by carved wooden beams, as
was the manner of building in those days. Specimens
of it can still be seen in some parts of Lithuania
and Poland. They were all covered with enormously
high roofs, with a multitude of windows and air-holes.
On one side, close to the church, rose a building
quite detached from and taller than the rest, probably
the town-hall or some official structure. It
was two stories high, and above it, on two arches,
rose a belvedere where a watchman stood; a huge clock-face
was let into the roof.
The square seemed deserted, but Andrii
thought he heard a feeble groan. Looking about
him, he perceived, on the farther side, a group of
two or three men lying motionless upon the ground.
He fixed his eyes more intently on them, to see whether
they were asleep or dead; and, at the same moment,
stumbled over something lying at his feet. It
was the dead body of a woman, a Jewess apparently.
She appeared to be young, though it was scarcely discernible
in her distorted and emaciated features. Upon
her head was a red silk kerchief; two rows of pearls
or pearl beads adorned the beads of her head-dress,
from beneath which two long curls hung down upon her
shrivelled neck, with its tightly drawn veins.
Beside her lay a child, grasping convulsively at her
shrunken breast, and squeezing it with involuntary
ferocity at finding no milk there. He neither
wept nor screamed, and only his gently rising and falling
body would have led one to guess that he was not dead,
or at least on the point of breathing his last.
They turned into a street, and were suddenly stopped
by a madman, who, catching sight of Andrii’s
precious burden, sprang upon him like a tiger, and
clutched him, yelling, “Bread!” But his
strength was not equal to his madness. Andrii
repulsed him and he fell to the ground. Moved
with pity, the young Cossack flung him a loaf, which
he seized like a mad dog, gnawing and biting it; but
nevertheless he shortly expired in horrible suffering,
there in the street, from the effect of long abstinence.
The ghastly victims of hunger startled them at every
step. Many, apparently unable to endure their
torments in their houses, seemed to run into the streets
to see whether some nourishing power might not possibly
descend from the air. At the gate of one house
sat an old woman, and it was impossible to say whether
she was asleep or dead, or only unconscious; at all
events, she no longer saw or heard anything, and sat
immovable in one spot, her head drooping on her breast.
From the roof of another house hung a worn and wasted
body in a rope noose. The poor fellow could not
endure the tortures of hunger to the last, and had
preferred to hasten his end by a voluntary death.
At the sight of such terrible proofs
of famine, Andrii could not refrain from saying to
the Tatar, “Is there really nothing with which
they can prolong life? If a man is driven to
extremities, he must feed on what he has hitherto
despised; he can sustain himself with creatures which
are forbidden by the law. Anything can be eaten
under such circumstances.”
“They have eaten everything,”
said the Tatar, “all the animals. Not a
horse, nor a dog, nor even a mouse is to be found in
the whole city. We never had any store of provisions
in the town: they were all brought from the villages.”
“But how can you, while dying
such a fearful death, still dream of defending the
city?”
“Possibly the Waiwode might
have surrendered; but yesterday morning the commander
of the troops at Buzhana sent a hawk into the city
with a note saying that it was not to be given up;
that he was coming to its rescue with his forces,
and was only waiting for another leader, that they
might march together. And now they are expected
every moment. But we have reached the house.”
Andrii had already noticed from a
distance this house, unlike the others, and built
apparently by some Italian architect. It was
constructed of thin red bricks, and had two stories.
The windows of the lower story were sheltered under
lofty, projecting granite cornices. The upper
story consisted entirely of small arches, forming a
gallery; between the arches were iron gratings enriched
with escutcheons; whilst upon the gables of the house
more coats-of-arms were displayed. The broad
external staircase, of tinted bricks, abutted on the
square. At the foot of it sat guards, who with
one hand held their halberds upright, and with the
other supported their drooping heads, and in this
attitude more resembled apparitions than living beings.
They neither slept nor dreamed, but seemed quite insensible
to everything; they even paid no attention to who
went up the stairs. At the head of the stairs,
they found a richly-dressed warrior, armed cap-a-pie,
and holding a breviary in his hand. He turned
his dim eyes upon them; but the Tatar spoke a word
to him, and he dropped them again upon the open pages
of his breviary. They entered the first chamber,
a large one, serving either as a reception-room, or
simply as an ante-room; it was filled with soldiers,
servants, secretaries, huntsmen, cup-bearers, and the
other servitors indispensable to the support of a Polish
magnate’s estate, all seated along the walls.
The reek of extinguished candles was perceptible;
and two were still burning in two huge candlesticks,
nearly as tall as a man, standing in the middle of
the room, although morning had long since peeped through
the wide grated window. Andrii wanted to go straight
on to the large oaken door adorned with a coat-of-arms
and a profusion of carved ornaments, but the Tatar
pulled his sleeve and pointed to a small door in the
side wall. Through this they gained a corridor,
and then a room, which he began to examine attentively.
The light which filtered through a crack in the shutter
fell upon several objects a crimson curtain,
a gilded cornice, and a painting on the wall.
Here the Tatar motioned to Andrii to wait, and opened
the door into another room from which flashed the
light of a fire. He heard a whispering, and a
soft voice which made him quiver all over. Through
the open door he saw flit rapidly past a tall female
figure, with a long thick braid of hair falling over
her uplifted hands. The Tatar returned and told
him to go in.
He could never understand how he entered
and how the door was shut behind him. Two candles
burned in the room and a lamp glowed before the images:
beneath the lamp stood a tall table with steps to kneel
upon during prayer, after the Catholic fashion.
But his eye did not seek this. He turned to the
other side and perceived a woman, who appeared to
have been frozen or turned to stone in the midst of
some quick movement. It seemed as though her
whole body had sought to spring towards him, and had
suddenly paused. And he stood in like manner amazed
before her. Not thus had he pictured to himself
that he should find her. This was not the same
being he had formerly known; nothing about her resembled
her former self; but she was twice as beautiful, twice
as enchanting, now than she had been then. Then
there had been something unfinished, incomplete, about
her; now here was a production to which the artist
had given the finishing stroke of his brush. That
was a charming, giddy girl; this was a woman in the
full development of her charms. As she raised
her eyes, they were full of feeling, not of mere hints
of feeling. The tears were not yet dry in them,
and framed them in a shining dew which penetrated
the very soul. Her bosom, neck, and arms were
moulded in the proportions which mark fully developed
loveliness. Her hair, which had in former days
waved in light ringlets about her face, had become
a heavy, luxuriant mass, a part of which was caught
up, while part fell in long, slender curls upon her
arms and breast. It seemed as though her every
feature had changed. In vain did he seek to discover
in them a single one of those which were engraved in
his memory a single one. Even her
great pallor did not lessen her wonderful beauty;
on the contrary, it conferred upon it an irresistible,
inexpressible charm. Andrii felt in his heart
a noble timidity, and stood motionless before her.
She, too, seemed surprised at the appearance of the
Cossack, as he stood before her in all the beauty and
might of his young manhood, and in the very immovability
of his limbs personified the utmost freedom of movement.
His eyes beamed with clear decision; his velvet brows
curved in a bold arch; his sunburnt cheeks glowed
with all the ardour of youthful fire; and his downy
black moustache shone like silk.
“No, I have no power to thank
you, noble sir,” she said, her silvery voice
all in a tremble. “God alone can reward
you, not I, a weak woman.” She dropped
her eyes, her lids fell over them in beautiful, snowy
semicircles, guarded by lashes long as arrows; her
wondrous face bowed forward, and a delicate flush
overspread it from within. Andrii knew not what
to say; he wanted to say everything. He had in
his mind to say it all ardently as it glowed in his
heart and could not. He felt something
confining his mouth; voice and words were lacking;
he felt that it was not for him, bred in the seminary
and in the tumult of a roaming life, to reply fitly
to such language, and was angry with his Cossack nature.
At that moment the Tatar entered the
room. She had cut up the bread which the warrior
had brought into small pieces on a golden plate, which
she placed before her mistress. The lady glanced
at her, at the bread, at her again, and then turned
her eyes towards Andrii. There was a great deal
in those eyes. That gentle glance, expressive
of her weakness and her inability to give words to
the feeling which overpowered her, was far more comprehensible
to Andrii than any words. His heart suddenly
grew light within him, all seemed made smooth.
The mental emotions and the feelings which up to that
moment he had restrained with a heavy curb, as it
were, now felt themselves released, at liberty, and
anxious to pour themselves out in a resistless torrent
of words. Suddenly the lady turned to the Tatar,
and said anxiously, “But my mother? you took
her some?”
“She is asleep.”
“And my father?”
“I carried him some; he said
that he would come to thank the young lord in person.”
She took the bread and raised it to
her mouth. With inexpressible delight Andrii
watched her break it with her shining fingers and eat
it; but all at once he recalled the man mad with hunger,
who had expired before his eyes on swallowing a morsel
of bread. He turned pale and, seizing her hand,
cried, “Enough! eat no more! you have not eaten
for so long that too much bread will be poison to
you now.” And she at once dropped her hand,
laid her bread upon the plate, and gazed into his eyes
like a submissive child. And if any words could
express But neither chisel, nor brush,
nor mighty speech is capable of expressing what is
sometimes seen in glances of maidens, nor the tender
feeling which takes possession of him who receives
such maiden glances.
“My queen!” exclaimed
Andrii, his heart and soul filled with emotion, “what
do you need? what do you wish? command me! Impose
on me the most impossible task in all the world:
I fly to fulfil it! Tell me to do that which
it is beyond the power of man to do: I will fulfil
it if I destroy myself. I will ruin myself.
And I swear by the holy cross that ruin for your sake
is as sweet but no, it is impossible to
say how sweet! I have three farms; half my father’s
droves of horses are mine; all that my mother brought
my father, and which she still conceals from him all
this is mine! Not one of the Cossacks owns such
weapons as I; for the pommel of my sword alone they
would give their best drove of horses and three thousand
sheep. And I renounce all this, I discard it,
I throw it aside, I will burn and drown it, if you
will but say the word, or even move your delicate
black brows! But I know that I am talking madly
and wide of the mark; that all this is not fitting
here; that it is not for me, who have passed my life
in the seminary and among the Zaporozhtzi, to speak
as they speak where kings, princes, and all the best
of noble knighthood have been. I can see that
you are a different being from the rest of us, and
far above all other boyars’ wives and maiden
daughters.”
With growing amazement the maiden
listened, losing no single word, to the frank, sincere
language in which, as in a mirror, the young, strong
spirit reflected itself. Each simple word of this
speech, uttered in a voice which penetrated straight
to the depths of her heart, was clothed in power.
She advanced her beautiful face, pushed back her troublesome
hair, opened her mouth, and gazed long, with parted
lips. Then she tried to say something and suddenly
stopped, remembering that the warrior was known by
a different name; that his father, brothers, country,
lay beyond, grim avengers; that the Zaporozhtzi besieging
the city were terrible, and that the cruel death awaited
all who were within its walls, and her eyes suddenly
filled with tears. She seized a silk embroidered
handkerchief and threw it over her face. In a
moment it was all wet; and she sat for some time with
her beautiful head thrown back, and her snowy teeth
set on her lovely under-lip, as though she suddenly
felt the sting of a poisonous serpent, without removing
the handkerchief from her face, lest he should see
her shaken with grief.
“Speak but one word to me,”
said Andrii, and he took her satin-skinned hand.
A sparkling fire coursed through his veins at the touch,
and he pressed the hand lying motionless in his.
But she still kept silence, never
taking the kerchief from her face, and remaining motionless.
“Why are you so sad? Tell me, why are you
so sad?”
She cast away the handkerchief, pushed
aside the long hair which fell over her eyes, and
poured out her heart in sad speech, in a quiet voice,
like the breeze which, rising on a beautiful evening,
blows through the thick growth of reeds beside the
stream. They rustle, murmur, and give forth delicately
mournful sounds, and the traveller, pausing in inexplicable
sadness, hears them, and heeds not the fading light,
nor the gay songs of the peasants which float in the
air as they return from their labours in meadow and
stubble-field, nor the distant rumble of the passing
waggon.
“Am not I worthy of eternal
pity? Is not the mother that bore me unhappy?
Is it not a bitter lot which has befallen me?
Art not thou a cruel executioner, fate? Thou
has brought all to my feet the highest
nobles in the land, the richest gentlemen, counts,
foreign barons, all the flower of our knighthood.
All loved me, and any one of them would have counted
my love the greatest boon. I had but to beckon,
and the best of them, the handsomest, the first in
beauty and birth would have become my husband.
And to none of them didst thou incline my heart, O
bitter fate; but thou didst turn it against the noblest
heroes of our land, and towards a stranger, towards
our enemy. O most holy mother of God! for what
sin dost thou so pitilessly, mercilessly, persecute
me? In abundance and superfluity of luxury my
days were passed, the richest dishes and the sweetest
wine were my food. And to what end was it all?
What was it all for? In order that I might at
last die a death more cruel than that of the meanest
beggar in the kingdom? And it was not enough
that I should be condemned to so horrible a fate; not
enough that before my own end I should behold my father
and mother perish in intolerable torment, when I would
have willingly given my own life twenty times over
to save them; all this was not enough, but before my
own death I must hear words of love such as I had never
before dreamed of. It was necessary that he should
break my heart with his words; that my bitter lot
should be rendered still more bitter; that my young
life should be made yet more sad; that my death should
seem even more terrible; and that, dying, I should
reproach thee still more, O cruel fate! and thee forgive
my sin O holy mother of God!”
As she ceased in despair, her feelings
were plainly expressed in her face. Every feature
spoke of gnawing sorrow and, from the sadly bowed
brow and downcast eyes to the tears trickling down
and drying on her softly burning cheeks, seemed to
say, “There is no happiness in this face.”
“Such a thing was never heard
of since the world began. It cannot be,”
said Andrii, “that the best and most beautiful
of women should suffer so bitter a fate, when she
was born that all the best there is in the world should
bow before her as before a saint. No, you will
not die, you shall not die! I swear by my birth
and by all there is dear to me in the world that you
shall not die. But if it must be so; if nothing,
neither strength, nor prayer, nor heroism, will avail
to avert this cruel fate then we will die
together, and I will die first. I will die before
you, at your beauteous knees, and even in death they
shall not divide us.”
“Deceive not yourself and me,
noble sir,” she said, gently shaking her beautiful
head; “I know, and to my great sorrow I know
but too well, that it is impossible for you to love
me. I know what your duty is, and your faith.
Your father calls you, your comrades, your country,
and we are your enemies.”
“And what are my father, my
comrades, my country to me?” said Andrii, with
a quick movement of his head, and straightening up
his figure like a poplar beside the river. “Be
that as it may, I have no one, no one!” he repeated,
with that movement of the hand with which the Cossack
expresses his determination to do some unheard-of deed,
impossible to any other man. “Who says
that the Ukraine is my country? Who gave it to
me for my country? Our country is the one our
soul longs for, the one which is dearest of all to
us. My country is you! That is
my native land, and I bear that country in my heart.
I will bear it there all my life, and I will see whether
any of the Cossacks can tear it thence. And I
will give everything, barter everything, I will destroy
myself, for that country!”
Astounded, she gazed in his eyes for
a space, like a beautiful statue, and then suddenly
burst out sobbing; and with the wonderful feminine
impetuosity which only grand-souled, uncalculating
women, created for fine impulses of the heart, are
capable of, threw herself upon his neck, encircling
it with her wondrous snowy arms, and wept. At
that moment indistinct shouts rang through the street,
accompanied by the sound of trumpets and kettledrums;
but he heard them not. He was only conscious
of the beauteous mouth bathing him with its warm, sweet
breath, of the tears streaming down his face, and
of her long, unbound perfumed hair, veiling him completely
in its dark and shining silk.
At that moment the Tatar ran in with
a cry of joy. “Saved, saved!” she
cried, beside herself. “Our troops have
entered the city. They have brought corn, millet,
flour, and Zaporozhtzi in chains!” But no one
heard that “our troops” had arrived in
the city, or what they had brought with them, or how
they had bound the Zaporozhtzi. Filled with feelings
untasted as yet upon earth, Andrii kissed the sweet
mouth which pressed his cheek, and the sweet mouth
did not remain unresponsive. In this union of
kisses they experienced that which it is given to a
man to feel but once on earth.
And the Cossack was ruined. He
was lost to Cossack chivalry. Never again will
Zaporozhe, nor his father’s house, nor the Church
of God, behold him. The Ukraine will never more
see the bravest of the children who have undertaken
to defend her. Old Taras may tear the grey hair
from his scalp-lock, and curse the day and hour in
which such a son was born to dishonour him.
Chapter VII. Noise and
movement were rife in the Zaporozhian camp. At
first, no one could account for the relieving army
having made its way into the city; but it afterwards
appeared that the Pereyaslavsky kuren, encamped
before the wide gate of the town, had been dead drunk.
It was no wonder that half had been killed, and the
other half bound, before they knew what it was all
about. Meantime the neighbouring kurens, aroused
by the tumult, succeeded in grasping their weapons;
but the relieving force had already passed through
the gate, and its rear ranks fired upon the sleepy
and only half-sober Zaporozhtzi who were pressing
in disorder upon them, and kept them back.
The Koschevoi ordered a general assembly;
and when all stood in a ring and had removed their
caps and became quiet, he said: “See what
happened last night, brother gentles! See what
drunkenness has led to! See what shame the enemy
has put upon us! It is evident that, if your allowances
are kindly doubled, then you are ready to stretch out
at full length, and the enemies of Christ can not
only take your very trousers off you, but sneeze in
your faces without your hearing them!”
The Cossacks all stood with drooping
heads, knowing that they were guilty; only Kukubenko,
the hetman of the Nezamisky kuren, answered
back. “Stop, father!” said he; “although
it is not lawful to make a retort when the Koschevoi
speaks before the whole army, yet it is necessary
to say that that was not the state of the case.
You have not been quite just in your reprimand.
The Cossacks would have been guilty, and deserving
of death, had they got drunk on the march, or when
engaged on heavy toilsome labour during war; but we
have been sitting here unoccupied, loitering in vain
before the city. There was no fast or other Christian
restraint; how then could it be otherwise than that
a man should get drunk in idleness? There is
no sin in that. But we had better show them what
it is to attack innocent people. They first beat
us well, and now we will beat them so that not half
a dozen of them will ever see home again.”
The speech of the hetman of the
kuren pleased the Cossacks. They raised
their drooping heads upright and many nodded approvingly,
muttering, “Kukubenko has spoken well!”
And Taras Bulba, who stood not far from the Koschevoi,
said: “How now, Koschevoi? Kukubenko
has spoken truth. What have you to say to this?”
“What have I to say? I
say, Blessed be the father of such a son! It
does not need much wisdom to utter words of reproof;
but much wisdom is needed to find such words as do
not embitter a man’s misfortune, but encourage
him, restore to him his spirit, put spurs to the horse
of his soul, refreshed by water. I meant myself
to speak words of comfort to you, but Kukubenko has
forestalled me.”
“The Koschevoi has also spoken
well!” rang through the ranks of the Zaporozhtzi.
“His words are good,” repeated others.
And even the greyheads, who stood there like dark
blue doves, nodded their heads and, twitching their
grey moustaches, muttered softly, “That was well
said.”
“Listen now, gentles,”
continued the Koschevoi. “To take the city,
by scaling its walls, or undermining them as the foreign
engineers do, is not proper, not Cossack fashion.
But, judging from appearances, the enemy entered the
city without many provisions; they had not many waggons
with them. The people in the city are hungry;
they will all eat heartily, and the horses will soon
devour the hay. I don’t know whether their
saints will fling them down anything from heaven with
hayforks; God only knows that though there are a great
many Catholic priests among them. By one means
or another the people will seek to leave the city.
Divide yourselves, therefore, into three divisions,
and take up your posts before the three gates; five
kurens before the principal gate, and three kurens
before each of the others. Let the Dadikivsky
and Korsunsky kurens go into ambush and Taras and
his men into ambush too. The Titarevsky and Timoschevsky
kurens are to guard the baggage train on the right
flank, the Scherbinovsky and Steblikivsky on the left,
and to select from their ranks the most daring young
men to face the foe. The Lyakhs are of a restless
nature and cannot endure a siege, and perhaps this
very day they will sally forth from the gates.
Let each hetman inspect his kuren; those
whose ranks are not full are to be recruited from
the remains of the Pereyaslavsky kuren. Inspect
them all anew. Give a loaf and a beaker to each
Cossack to strengthen him. But surely every one
must be satiated from last night; for all stuffed themselves
so that, to tell the truth, I am only surprised that
no one burst in the night. And here is one further
command: if any Jew spirit-seller sells a Cossack
so much as a single jug of brandy, I will nail pig’s
ears to his very forehead, the dog, and hang him up
by his feet. To work, brothers, to work!”
Thus did the Koschevoi give his orders.
All bowed to their girdles, and without putting on
their caps set out for their waggons and camps.
It was only when they had gone some distance that
they covered themselves. All began to equip themselves:
they tested their swords, poured powder from the sacks
into their powder-flasks, drew up and arranged the
waggons, and looked to their horses.
On his way to his band, Taras wondered
what had become of Andrii; could he have been captured
and found while asleep with the others? But no,
Andrii was not the man to go alive into captivity.
Yet he was not to be seen among the slaughtered Cossacks.
Taras pondered deeply and went past his men without
hearing that some one had for some time been calling
him by name. “Who wants me?” he said,
finally arousing himself from his reflections.
Before him stood the Jew, Yankel. “Lord
colonel! lord colonel!” said the Jew in a hasty
and broken voice, as though desirous of revealing
something not utterly useless, “I have been in
the city, lord colonel!”
Taras looked at the Jew, and wondered
how he had succeeded in getting into the city.
“What enemy took you there?”
“I will tell you at once,”
said Yankel. “As soon as I heard the uproar
this morning, when the Cossacks began to fire, I seized
my caftan and, without stopping to put it on, ran
at the top of my speed, thrusting my arms in on the
way, because I wanted to know as soon as possible the
cause of the noise and why the Cossacks were firing
at dawn. I ran to the very gate of the city,
at the moment when the last of the army was passing
through. I looked, and in command of the rearguard
was Cornet Galyandovitch. He is a man well known
to me; he has owed me a hundred ducats these
three years past. I ran after him, as though to
claim the debt of him, and so entered the city with
them.”
“You entered the city, and wanted
him to settle the debt!” said Bulba; “and
he did not order you to be hung like a dog on the spot?”
“By heavens, he did want to
hang me,” replied the Jew; “his servants
had already seized me and thrown a rope about my neck.
But I besought the noble lord, and said that I would
wait for the money as long as his lordship liked,
and promised to lend him more if he would only help
me to collect my debts from the other nobles; for
I can tell my lord that the noble cornet had not a
ducat in his pocket, although he has farms and estates
and four castles and steppe-land that extends clear
to Schklof; but he has not a penny, any more than
a Cossack. If the Breslau Jews had not equipped
him, he would never have gone on this campaign.
That was the reason he did not go to the Diet.”
“What did you do in the city?
Did you see any of our people?”
“Certainly, there are many of
them there: Itzok, Rachum, Samuel, Khaivalkh,
Evrei the pawnbroker ”
“May they die, the dogs!”
shouted Taras in a rage. “Why do you name
your Jewish tribe to me? I ask you about our
Zaporozhtzi.”
“I saw none of our Zaporozhtzi; I saw only Lord
Andrii.”
“You saw Andrii!” shouted
Bulba. “What is he doing? Where did
you see him? In a dungeon? in a pit? dishonoured?
bound?”
“Who would dare to bind Lord
Andrii? now he is so grand a knight. I hardly
recognised him. Gold on his shoulders and his
belt, gold everywhere about him; as the sun shines
in spring, when every bird twitters and sings in the
orchard, so he shines, all gold. And his horse,
which the Waiwode himself gave him, is the very best;
that horse alone is worth two hundred ducats.”
Bulba was petrified. “Why
has he put on foreign garments?”
“He put them on because they
were finer. And he rides about, and the others
ride about, and he teaches them, and they teach him;
like the very grandest Polish noble.”
“Who forced him to do this?”
“I should not say that he had
been forced. Does not my lord know that he went
over to them of his own free will?”
“Who went over?”
“Lord Andrii.”
“Went where?”
“Went over to their side; he is now a thorough
foreigner.”
“You lie, you hog’s ear!”
“How is it possible that I should
lie? Am I a fool, that I should lie? Would
I lie at the risk of my head? Do not I know that
Jews are hung like dogs if they lie to nobles?”
“Then it means, according to
you, he has betrayed his native land and his faith?”
“I do not say that he has betrayed
anything; I merely said that he had gone over to the
other side.”
“You lie, you imp of a Jew!
Such a deed was never known in a Christian land.
You are making a mistake, dog!”
“May the grass grow upon the
threshold of my house if I am mistaken! May every
one spit upon the grave of my father, my mother, my
father’s father, and my mother’s father,
if I am mistaken! If my lord wished I can even
tell him why he went over to them.”
“Why?”
“The Waiwode has a beautiful
daughter. Holy Father! what a beauty!”
Here the Jew tried his utmost to express beauty by
extending his hands, screwing up his eyes, and twisting
his mouth to one side as though tasting something
on trial.
“Well, what of that?”
“He did it all for her, he went
there for her sake. When a man is in love, then
all things are the same to him; like the sole of a
shoe which you can bend in any direction if you soak
it in water.”
Bulba reflected deeply. He remembered
the power of weak woman how she had ruined
many a strong man, and that this was the weak point
in Andrii’s nature and stood for
some time in one spot, as though rooted there.
“Listen, my lord, I will tell my lord all,”
said the Jew. “As soon as I heard the uproar,
and saw them going through the city gate, I seized
a string of pearls, in case of any emergency.
For there are beauties and noble-women there; ’and
if there are beauties and noble-women,’ I said
to myself, ’they will buy pearls, even if they
have nothing to eat.’ And, as soon as ever
the cornet’s servants had set me at liberty,
I hastened to the Waiwode’s residence to sell
my pearls. I asked all manner of questions of
the lady’s Tatar maid; the wedding is to take
place immediately, as soon as they have driven off
the Zaporozhtzi. Lord Andrii has promised to
drive off the Zaporovians.”
“And you did not kill him on
the spot, you devil’s brat?” shouted Bulba.
“Why should I kill him?
He went over of his own free will. What is his
crime? He liked it better there, so he went there.”
“And you saw him face to face?”
“Face to face, by heavens! such
a magnificent warrior! more splendid than all the
rest. God bless him, he knew me, and when I approached
him he said at once ”
“What did he say?”
“He said First he
beckoned me with his finger, and then he said, ‘Yankel!’
Lord Andrii said, ’Yankel, tell my father, tell
my brother, tell all the Cossacks, all the Zaporozhtzi,
everybody, that my father is no longer my father,
nor my brother my brother, nor my comrades my comrades;
and that I will fight them all, all.’”
“You lie, imp of a Jew!”
shouted Taras, beside himself. “You lie,
dog! I will kill you, Satan! Get away from
here! if not, death awaits you!” So saying,
Taras drew his sword.
The terrified Jew set off instantly,
at the full speed of his thin, shrunken legs.
He ran for a long time, without looking back, through
the Cossack camp, and then far out on the deserted
plain, although Taras did not chase him at all, reasoning
that it was foolish to thus vent his rage on the first
person who presented himself.
Then he recollected that he had seen
Andrii on the previous night traversing the camp with
some woman, and he bowed his grey head. Still
he would not believe that so disgraceful a thing could
have happened, and that his own son had betrayed his
faith and soul.
Finally he placed his men in ambush
in a wood the only one which had not been
burned by the Cossacks whilst the Zaporozhians,
foot and horse, set out for the three gates by three
different roads. One after another the kurens
turned out: Oumansky, Popovichesky, Kanevsky,
Steblikovsky, Nezamaikovsky, Gurgazif, Titarevsky,
Tomischevsky. The Pereyaslavsky kuren alone
was wanting. Its Cossacks had smoked and drank
to their destruction. Some awoke to find themselves
bound in the enemy’s hands; others never woke
at all but passed in their sleep into the damp earth;
and the hetman Khlib himself, minus his trousers
and accoutrements, found himself in the camp of the
Lyakhs.
The uproar among the Zaporozhtzi was
heard in the city. All the besieged hastened
to the ramparts, and a lively scene was presented to
the Cossacks. The handsome Polish heroes thronged
on the wall. The brazen helmets of some shone
like the sun, and were adorned with feathers white
as swans. Others wore pink and blue caps, drooping
over one ear, and caftans with the sleeves thrown
back, embroidered with gold. Their weapons were
richly mounted and very costly, as were their equipments.
In the front rank the Budzhakovsky colonel stood proudly
in his red cap ornamented with gold. He was a
tall, stout man, and his rich and ample caftan hardly
covered him. Near the side gate stood another
colonel. He was a dried-up little man, but his
small, piercing eyes gleamed sharply from under his
thick and shaggy brows, and as he turned quickly on
all sides, motioning boldly with his thin, withered
hand, and giving out his orders, it was evident that,
in spite of his little body, he understood military
science thoroughly. Not far from him stood a very
tall cornet, with thick moustaches and a highly-coloured
complexion a noble fond of strong mead
and hearty revelry. Behind them were many nobles
who had equipped themselves, some with their own ducats,
some from the royal treasury, some with money obtained
from the Jews, by pawning everything they found in
their ancestral castles. Many too were parasites,
whom the senators took with them to dinners for show,
and who stole silver cups from the table and the sideboard,
and when the day’s display was over mounted
some noble’s coach-box and drove his horses.
There were folk of all kinds there. Sometimes
they had not enough to drink, but all were equipped
for war.
The Cossack ranks stood quietly before
the walls. There was no gold about them, save
where it shone on the hilt of a sword or the mountings
of a gun. The Zaporozhtzi were not given to decking
themselves out gaily for battle: their coats-of-mail
and garments were plain, and their black-bordered
red-crowned caps showed darkly in the distance.
Two men Okhrim Nasch and
Mikiga Golokopuitenko advanced from the
Zaporozhian ranks. One was quite young, the other
older; both fierce in words, and not bad specimens
of Cossacks in action. They were followed by
Demid Popovitch, a strongly built Cossack who had been
hanging about the Setch for a long time, after having
been in Adrianople and undergoing a great deal in
the course of his life. He had been burned, and
had escaped to the Setch with blackened head and singed
moustaches. But Popovitch recovered, let his
hair grow, raised moustaches thick and black as pitch,
and was a stout fellow, according to his own biting
speech.
“Red jackets on all the army,
but I should like to know what sort of men are under
them,” he cried.
“I will show you,” shouted
the stout colonel from above. “I will capture
the whole of you. Surrender your guns and horses,
slaves. Did you see how I caught your men? Bring
out a Zaporozhetz on the wall for them to see.”
And they let out a Zaporozhetz bound with stout cords.
Before them stood Khlib, the hetman
of the Pereyaslavsky kuren, without his trousers
or accoutrements, just as they had captured him in
his drunken sleep. He bowed his head in shame
before the Cossacks at his nakedness, and at having
been thus taken like a dog, while asleep. His
hair had turned grey in one night.
“Grieve not, Khlib: we
will rescue you,” shouted the Cossacks from
below.
“Grieve not, friend,”
cried the hetman Borodaty. “It is not
your fault that they caught you naked: that misfortune
might happen to any man. But it is a disgrace
to them that they should have exposed you to dishonour,
and not covered your nakedness decently.”
“You seem to be a brave army
when you have people who are asleep to fight,”
remarked Golokopuitenko, glancing at the ramparts.
“Wait a bit, we’ll singe
your top-knots for you!” was the reply.
“I should like to see them singe
our scalp locks!” said Popovitch, prancing about
before them on his horse; and then, glancing at his
comrades, he added, “Well, perhaps the Lyakhs
speak the truth: if that fat-bellied fellow leads
them, they will all find a good shelter.”
“Why do you think they will
find a good shelter?” asked the Cossacks, knowing
that Popovitch was probably preparing some repartee.
“Because the whole army will
hide behind him; and the devil himself couldn’t
help you to reach any one with your spear through that
belly of his!”
The Cossacks laughed, some of them
shaking their heads and saying, “What a fellow
Popovitch is for a joke! but now ”
But the Cossacks had not time to explain what they
meant by that “now.”
“Fall back, fall back quickly
from the wall!” shouted the Koschevoi, seeing
that the Lyakhs could not endure these biting words,
and that the colonel was waving his hand.
The Cossacks had hardly retreated
from the wall before the grape-shot rained down.
On the ramparts all was excitement, and the grey-haired
Waiwode himself appeared on horseback. The gates
opened and the garrison sallied forth. In the
van came hussars in orderly ranks, behind them the
horsemen in armour, and then the heroes in brazen helmets;
after whom rode singly the highest nobility, each
man accoutred as he pleased. These haughty nobles
would not mingle in the ranks with others, and such
of them as had no commands rode apart with their own
immediate following. Next came some more companies,
and after these the cornet, then more files of men,
and the stout colonel; and in the rear of the whole
force the little colonel.
“Keep them from forming in line!”
shouted the Koschevoi; “let all the kurens attack
them at once! Block the other gate! Titarevsky
kuren, fall on one flank! Dyadovsky kuren,
charge on the other! Attack them in the rear,
Kukubenko and Palivod! Check them, break them!”
The Cossacks attacked on all sides, throwing the Lyakhs
into confusion and getting confused themselves.
They did not even give the foe time to fire, it came
to swords and spears at once. All fought hand
to hand, and each man had an opportunity to distinguish
himself.
Demid Popovitch speared three soldiers,
and struck two of the highest nobles from their saddles,
saying, “Good horses! I have long wanted
just such horses.” And he drove the horses
far afield, shouting to the Cossacks standing about
to catch them. Then he rushed again into the
fray, fell upon the dismounted nobles, slew one, and
throwing his lasso round the neck of the other, tied
him to his saddle and dragged him over the plain,
after having taken from him his sword from its rich
hilt and removed from his girdle a whole bag of ducats.
Kobita, a good Cossack, though still
very young, attacked one of the bravest men in the
Polish army, and they fought long together. They
grappled, and the Cossack mastering his foe, and throwing
him down, stabbed him in the breast with his sharp
Turkish knife. But he did not look out for himself,
and a bullet struck him on the temple. The man
who struck him down was the most distinguished of
the nobles, the handsomest scion of an ancient and
princely race. Like a stately poplar, he bestrode
his dun-coloured steed, and many heroic deeds did he
perform. He cut two Cossacks in twain. Fedor
Korzh, the brave Cossack, he overthrew together with
his horse, shooting the steed and picking off the
rider with his spear. Many heads and hands did
he hew off; and slew Kobita by sending a bullet through
his temple.
“There’s a man I should
like to measure strength with!” shouted Kukubenko,
the hetman of the Nezamaikovsky kuren.
Spurring his horse, he dashed straight at the Pole’s
back, shouting loudly, so that all who stood near
shuddered at the unearthly yell. The boyard tried
to wheel his horse suddenly and face him, but his
horse would not obey him; scared by the terrible cry,
it bounded aside, and the Lyakh received Kukubenko’s
fire. The ball struck him in the shoulder-blade,
and he rolled from his saddle. Even then he did
not surrender and strove to deal his enemy a blow,
but his hand was weak. Kukubenko, taking his
heavy sword in both hands, thrust it through his mouth.
The sword, breaking out two teeth, cut the tongue
in twain, pierced the windpipe, and penetrated deep
into the earth, nailing him to the ground. His
noble blood, red as viburnum berries beside the river,
welled forth in a stream staining his yellow, gold-embroidered
caftan. But Kukubenko had already left him, and
was forcing his way, with his Nezamaikovsky kuren,
towards another group.
“He has left untouched rich
plunder,” said Borodaty, hetman of the
Oumansky kuren, leaving his men and going to the
place where the nobleman killed by Kukubenko lay.
“I have killed seven nobles with my own hand,
but such spoil I never beheld on any one.”
Prompted by greed, Borodaty bent down to strip off
the rich armour, and had already secured the Turkish
knife set with precious stones, and taken from the
foe’s belt a purse of ducats, and from
his breast a silver case containing a maiden’s
curl, cherished tenderly as a love-token. But
he heeded not how the red-faced cornet, whom he had
already once hurled from the saddle and given a good
blow as a remembrance, flew upon him from behind.
The cornet swung his arm with all his might, and brought
his sword down upon Borodaty’s bent neck.
Greed led to no good: the head rolled off, and
the body fell headless, sprinkling the earth with
blood far and wide; whilst the Cossack soul ascended,
indignant and surprised at having so soon quitted
so stout a frame. The cornet had not succeeded
in seizing the hetman’s head by its scalp-lock,
and fastening it to his saddle, before an avenger
had arrived.
As a hawk floating in the sky, sweeping
in great circles with his mighty wings, suddenly remains
poised in air, in one spot, and thence darts down
like an arrow upon the shrieking quail, so Taras’s
son Ostap darted suddenly upon the cornet and flung
a rope about his neck with one cast. The cornet’s
red face became a still deeper purple as the cruel
noose compressed his throat, and he tried to use his
pistol; but his convulsively quivering hand could
not aim straight, and the bullet flew wild across
the plain. Ostap immediately unfastened a silken
cord which the cornet carried at his saddle bow to
bind prisoners, and having with it bound him hand
and foot, attached the cord to his saddle and dragged
him across the field, calling on all the Cossacks of
the Oumansky kuren to come and render the last
honours to their hetman.
When the Oumantzi heard that the hetman
of their kuren, Borodaty, was no longer among
the living, they deserted the field of battle, rushed
to secure his body, and consulted at once as to whom
they should select as their leader. At length
they said, “But why consult? It is impossible
to find a better leader than Bulba’s son, Ostap;
he is younger than all the rest of us, it is true;
but his judgment is equal to that of the eldest.”
Ostap, taking off his cap, thanked
his comrades for the honour, and did not decline it
on the ground of youth or inexperience, knowing that
war time is no fitting season for that; but instantly
ordered them straight to the fray, and soon showed
them that not in vain had they chosen him as hetman.
The Lyakhs felt that the matter was growing too hot
for them, and retreated across the plain in order
to form again at its other end. But the little
colonel signalled to the reserve of four hundred,
stationed at the gate, and these rained shot upon the
Cossacks. To little purpose, however, their shot
only taking effect on the Cossack oxen, which were
gazing wildly upon the battle. The frightened
oxen, bellowing with fear, dashed into the camp, breaking
the line of waggons and trampling on many. But
Taras, emerging from ambush at the moment with his
troops, headed off the infuriated cattle, which, startled
by his yell, swooped down upon the Polish troops,
overthrew the cavalry, and crushed and dispersed them
all.
“Thank you, oxen!” cried
the Zaporozhtzi; “you served us on the march,
and now you serve us in war.” And they attacked
the foe with fresh vigour killing many of the enemy.
Several distinguished themselves Metelitza
and Schilo, both of the Pisarenki, Vovtuzenko, and
many others. The Lyakhs seeing that matters were
going badly for them flung away their banners and
shouted for the city gates to be opened. With
a screeching sound the iron-bound gates swung open
and received the weary and dust-covered riders, flocking
like sheep into a fold. Many of the Zaporozhtzi
would have pursued them, but Ostap stopped his Oumantzi,
saying, “Farther, farther from the walls, brother
gentles! it is not well to approach them too closely.”
He spoke truly; for from the ramparts the foe rained
and poured down everything which came to hand, and
many were struck. At that moment the Koschevoi
came up and congratulated him, saying, “Here
is the new hetman leading the army like an old
one!” Old Bulba glanced round to see the new
hetman, and beheld Ostap sitting on his horse
at the head of the Oumantzi, his cap on one side and
the hetman’s staff in his hand.
“Who ever saw the like!” he exclaimed;
and the old man rejoiced, and began to thank all the
Oumantzi for the honour they had conferred upon his
son.
The Cossacks retired, preparing to
go into camp; but the Lyakhs showed themselves again
on the city ramparts with tattered mantles. Many
rich caftans were spotted with blood, and dust
covered the brazen helmets.
“Have you bound us?” cried
the Zaporozhtzi to them from below.
“We will do so!” shouted
the big colonel from above, showing them a rope.
The weary, dust-covered warriors ceased not to threaten,
nor the most zealous on both sides to exchange fierce
remarks.
At length all dispersed. Some,
weary with battle, stretched themselves out to rest;
others sprinkled their wounds with earth, and bound
them with kerchiefs and rich stuffs captured from
the enemy. Others, who were fresher, began to
inspect the corpses and to pay them the last honours.
They dug graves with swords and spears, brought earth
in their caps and the skirts of their garments, laid
the Cossacks’ bodies out decently, and covered
them up in order that the ravens and eagles might not
claw out their eyes. But binding the bodies of
the Lyakhs, as they came to hand, to the tails of
horses, they let these loose on the plain, pursuing
them and beating them for some time. The infuriated
horses flew over hill and hollow, through ditch and
brook, dragging the bodies of the Poles, all covered
with blood and dust, along the ground.
All the kurens sat down in circles
in the evening, and talked for a long time of their
deeds, and of the achievements which had fallen to
the share of each, for repetition by strangers and
posterity. It was long before they lay down to
sleep; and longer still before old Taras, meditating
what it might signify that Andrii was not among the
foe, lay down. Had the Judas been ashamed to
come forth against his own countrymen? or had the
Jew been deceiving him, and had he simply gone into
the city against his will? But then he recollected
that there were no bounds to a woman’s influence
upon Andrii’s heart; he felt ashamed, and swore
a mighty oath to himself against the fair Pole who
had bewitched his son. And he would have kept
his oath. He would not have looked at her beauty;
he would have dragged her forth by her thick and splendid
hair; he would have trailed her after him over all
the plain, among all the Cossacks. Her beautiful
shoulders and bosom, white as fresh-fallen snow upon
the mountain-tops, would have been crushed to earth
and covered with blood and dust. Her lovely body
would have been torn to pieces. But Taras, who
did not foresee what God prepares for man on the morrow,
began to grow drowsy, and finally fell asleep.
The Cossacks still talked among themselves; and the
sober sentinel stood all night long beside the fire
without blinking and keeping a good look out on all
sides.
Chapter VIII. The sun had
not ascended midway in the heavens when all the army
assembled in a group. News had come from the Setch
that during the Cossacks’ absence the Tatars
had plundered it completely, unearthed the treasures
which were kept concealed in the ground, killed or
carried into captivity all who had remained behind,
and straightway set out, with all the flocks and droves
of horses they had collected, for Perekop. One
Cossack only, Maksin Galodukha, had broken loose from
the Tatars’ hands, stabbed the Mirza, seized
his bag of sequins, and on a Tatar horse, in Tatar
garments, had fled from his pursuers for two nights
and a day and a half, ridden his horse to death, obtained
another, killed that one too, and arrived at the Zaporozhian
camp upon a third, having learned upon the road that
the Zaporozhtzi were before Dubno. He could only
manage to tell them that this misfortune had taken
place; but as to how it happened whether
the remaining Zaporozhtzi had been carousing after
Cossack fashion, and had been carried drunk into captivity,
and how the Tatars were aware of the spot where
the treasures of the army were concealed he
was too exhausted to say. Extremely fatigued,
his body swollen, and his face scorched and weatherbeaten,
he had fallen down, and a deep sleep had overpowered
him.
In such cases it was customary for
the Cossacks to pursue the robbers at once, endeavouring
to overtake them on the road; for, let the prisoners
once be got to the bazaars of Asia Minor, Smyrna, or
the island of Crete, and God knows in what places
the tufted heads of Zaporozhtzi might not be seen.
This was the occasion of the Cossacks’ assembling.
They all stood to a man with their caps on; for they
had not met to listen to the commands of their hetman,
but to take counsel together as equals among equals.
“Let the old men first advise,” was shouted
to the crowd. “Let the Koschevoi give his
opinion,” cried others.
The Koschevoi, taking off his cap
and speaking not as commander, but as a comrade among
comrades, thanked all the Cossacks for the honour,
and said, “There are among us many experienced
men and much wisdom; but since you have thought me
worthy, my counsel is not to lose time in pursuing
the Tatars, for you know yourselves what the Tatar
is. He will not pause with his stolen booty to
await our coming, but will vanish in a twinkling,
so that you can find no trace of him. Therefore
my advice is to go. We have had good sport here.
The Lyakhs now know what Cossacks are. We have
avenged our faith to the extent of our ability; there
is not much to satisfy greed in the famished city,
and so my advice is to go.”
“To go,” rang heavily
through the Zaporozhian kurens. But such words
did not suit Taras Bulba at all; and he brought his
frowning, iron-grey brows still lower down over his
eyes, brows like bushes growing on dark mountain heights,
whose crowns are suddenly covered with sharp northern
frost.
“No, Koschevoi, your counsel
is not good,” said he. “You cannot
say that. You have evidently forgotten that those
of our men captured by the Lyakhs will remain prisoners.
You evidently wish that we should not heed the first
holy law of comradeship; that we should leave our brethren
to be flayed alive, or carried about through the towns
and villages after their Cossack bodies have been
quartered, as was done with the hetman and the
bravest Russian warriors in the Ukraine. Have
the enemy not desecrated the holy things sufficiently
without that? What are we? I ask you all
what sort of a Cossack is he who would desert his comrade
in misfortune, and let him perish like a dog in a
foreign land? If it has come to such a pass that
no one has any confidence in Cossack honour, permitting
men to spit upon his grey moustache, and upbraid him
with offensive words, then let no one blame me; I
will remain here alone.”
All the Zaporozhtzi who were there wavered.
“And have you forgotten, brave
comrades,” said the Koschevoi, “that the
Tatars also have comrades of ours in their
hands; that if we do not rescue them now their lives
will be sacrificed in eternal imprisonment among the
infidels, which is worse than the most cruel death?
Have you forgotten that they now hold all our treasure,
won by Christian blood?”
The Cossacks reflected, not knowing
what to say. None of them wished to deserve ill
repute. Then there stepped out in front of them
the oldest in years of all the Zaporozhian army, Kasyan
Bovdug. He was respected by all the Cossacks.
Twice had he been chosen Koschevoi, and had also been
a stout warrior; but he had long been old, and had
ceased to go upon raids. Neither did the old
man like to give advice to any one; but loved to lie
upon his side in the circle of Cossacks, listening
to tales of every occurrence on the Cossack marches.
He never joined in the conversation, but only listened,
and pressed the ashes with his finger in his short
pipe, which never left his mouth; and would sit so
long with his eyes half open, that the Cossacks never
knew whether he were asleep or still listening.
He always stayed at home during their raids, but this
time the old man had joined the army. He had waved
his hand in Cossack fashion, and said, “Wherever
you go, I am going too; perhaps I may be of some service
to the Cossack nation.” All the Cossacks
became silent when he now stepped forward before the
assembly, for it was long since any speech from him
had been heard. Every one wanted to know what
Bovdug had to say.
“It is my turn to speak a word,
brother gentles,” he began: “listen,
my children, to an old man. The Koschevoi spoke
well as the head of the Cossack army; being bound
to protect it, and in respect to the treasures of
the army he could say nothing wiser. That is so!
Let that be my first remark; but now listen to my
second. And this is my second remark: Taras
spoke even more truly. God grant him many years,
and that such leaders may be plentiful in the Ukraine!
A Cossack’s first duty and honour is to guard
comradeship. Never in all my life, brother gentles,
have I heard of any Cossack deserting or betraying
any of his comrades. Both those made captive
at the Setch and these taken here are our comrades.
Whether they be few or many, it makes no difference;
all are our comrades, and all are dear to us.
So this is my speech: Let those to whom the prisoners
captured by the Tatars are dear set out after
the Tatars; and let those to whom the captives
of the Poles are dear, and who do not care to desert
a righteous cause, stay behind. The Koschevoi,
in accordance with his duty, will accompany one half
in pursuit of the Tatars, and the other half
can choose a hetman to lead them. But if
you will heed the words of an old man, there is no
man fitter to be the commanding hetman than Taras
Bulba. Not one of us is his equal in heroism.”
Thus spoke Bovdug, and paused; and
all the Cossacks rejoiced that the old man had in
this manner brought them to an agreement. All
flung up their caps and shouted, “Thanks, father!
He kept silence for a long, long time, but he has
spoken at last. Not in vain did he say, when we
prepared for this expedition, that he might be useful
to the Cossack nation: even so it has come to
pass!”
“Well, are you agreed upon anything?”
asked the Koschevoi.
“We are all agreed!” cried the Cossacks.
“Then the council is at an end?”
“At an end!” cried the Cossacks.
“Then listen to the military
command, children,” said the Koschevoi, stepping
forward, and putting on his cap; whilst all the Cossacks
took off theirs, and stood with uncovered heads, and
with eyes fixed upon the earth, as was always the
custom among them when the leader prepared to speak.
“Now divide yourselves, brother gentles!
Let those who wish to go stand on the right, and those
who wish to stay, on the left. Where the majority
of a kuren goes there its officers are to go:
if the minority of a kuren goes over, it must
be added to another kuren.”
Then they began to take up their positions,
some to the right and some to the left. Whither
the majority of a kuren went thither the hetman
went also; and the minority attached itself to another
kuren. It came out pretty even on both sides.
Those who wished to remain were nearly the whole of
the Nezamaikovsky kuren, the entire Oumansky kuren,
the entire Kanevsky kuren, and the larger half
of the Popovitchsky, the Timoschevsky and the Steblikivsky
kurens. All the rest preferred to go in pursuit
of the Tatars. On both sides there were many
stout and brave Cossacks. Among those who decided
to follow the Tatars were Tcherevaty, and those
good old Cossacks Pokotipole, Lemisch, and Prokopovitch
Koma. Demid Popovitch also went with that party,
because he could not sit long in one place: he
had tried his hand on the Lyakhs and wanted to try
it on the Tatars also. The hetmans
of kurens were Nostiugan, Pokruischka, Nevnimsky,
and numerous brave and renowned Cossacks who wished
to test their swords and muscles in an encounter with
the Tatars. There were likewise many brave
Cossacks among those who preferred to remain, including
the kuren hetmans, Demitrovitch, Kukubenko,
Vertikhvist, Balan, and Ostap Bulba. Besides
these there were plenty of stout and distinguished
warriors: Vovtuzenko, Tcherevitchenko, Stepan
Guska, Okhrim Guska, Vikola Gonstiy, Zadorozhniy,
Metelitza, Ivan Zakrutiguba, Mosiy Pisarenko, and
still another Pisarenko, and many others. They
were all great travellers; they had visited the shores
of Anatolia, the salt marshes and steppes of the Crimea,
all the rivers great and small which empty into the
Dnieper, and all the fords and islands of the Dnieper;
they had been in Moldavia, Wallachia, and Turkey; they
had sailed all over the Black Sea, in their double-ruddered
Cossack boats; they had attacked with fifty skiffs
in line the tallest and richest ships; they had sunk
many a Turkish galley, and had burnt much, very much
powder in their day; more than once they had made
foot-bandages from velvets and rich stuffs; more than
once they had beaten buckles for their girdles out
of sequins. Every one of them had drunk and revelled
away what would have sufficed any other for a whole
lifetime, and had nothing to show for it. They
spent it all, like Cossacks, in treating all the world,
and in hiring music that every one might be merry.
Even now few of them had amassed any property:
some caskets, cups, and bracelets were hidden beneath
the reeds on the islands of the Dnieper in order that
the Tatars might not find them if by mishap they
should succeed in falling suddenly on the Setch; but
it would have been difficult for the Tatars to
find them, for the owners themselves had forgotten
where they had buried them. Such were the Cossacks
who wished to remain and take vengeance on the Lyakhs
for their trusty comrades and the faith of Christ.
The old Cossack Bovdug wished also to remain with
them, saying, “I am not of an age to pursue
the Tatars, but this is a place to meet a good
Cossack death. I have long prayed God that when
my life was to end I might end it in battle for a
holy and Christian cause. And so it has come to
pass. There can be no more glorious end in any
other place for the aged Cossack.”
When they had all separated, and were
ranged in two lines on opposite sides, the Koschevoi
passed through the ranks, and said, “Well, brother
gentles, are the two parties satisfied with each other?”
“All satisfied, father!” replied the Cossacks.
“Then kiss each other, and bid
each other farewell; for God knows whether you will
ever see each other alive again. Obey your hetman,
but you know yourselves what you have to do: you
know yourselves what Cossack honour requires.”
And all the Cossacks kissed each other.
The hetmans first began it. Stroking down
their grey moustaches, they kissed each other, making
the sign of the cross, and then, grasping hands firmly,
wanted to ask of each other, “Well, brother,
shall we see one another again or not?” But
they did not ask the question: they kept silence,
and both grey-heads were lost in thought. Then
the Cossacks took leave of each other to the last
man, knowing that there was a great deal of work before
them all. Yet they were not obliged to part at
once: they would have to wait until night in
order not to let the Lyakhs perceive the diminution
in the Cossack army. Then all went off, by kurens,
to dine.
After dinner, all who had the prospect
of the journey before them lay down to rest, and fell
into a deep and long sleep, as though foreseeing that
it was the last sleep they should enjoy in such security.
They slept even until sunset; and when the sun had
gone down and it had grown somewhat dusky, began to
tar the waggons. All being in readiness, they
sent the waggons ahead, and having pulled off their
caps once more to their comrades, quietly followed
the baggage train. The cavalry, without shouts
or whistles to the horses, tramped lightly after the
foot-soldiers, and all soon vanished in the darkness.
The only sound was the dull thud of horses’
hoofs, or the squeak of some wheel which had not got
into working order, or had not been properly tarred
amid the darkness.
Their comrades stood for some time
waving their hands, though nothing was visible.
But when they returned to their camping places and
saw by the light of the gleaming stars that half the
waggons were gone, and many of their comrades, each
man’s heart grew sad; all became involuntarily
pensive, and drooped their heads towards the earth.
Taras saw how troubled were the Cossack
ranks, and that sadness, unsuited to brave men, had
begun to quietly master the Cossack hearts; but he
remained silent. He wished to give them time to
become accustomed to the melancholy caused by their
parting from their comrades; but, meanwhile, he was
preparing to rouse them at one blow, by a loud battle-cry
in Cossack fashion, in order that good cheer might
return to the soul of each with greater strength than
before. Of this only the Slav nature, a broad,
powerful nature, which is to others what the sea is
to small rivulets, is capable. In stormy times
it roars and thunders, raging, and raising such waves
as weak rivers cannot throw up; but when it is windless
and quiet, it spreads its boundless glassy surface,
clearer than any river, a constant delight to the eye.
Taras ordered his servants to unload
one of the waggons which stood apart. It was
larger and stronger than any other in the Cossack camp;
two stout tires encircled its mighty wheels. It
was heavily laden, covered with horsecloths and strong
wolf-skins, and firmly bound with tightly drawn tarred
ropes. In the waggon were flasks and casks of
good old wine, which had long lain in Taras’s
cellar. He had brought it along, in case a moment
should arrive when some deed awaited them worthy of
being handed down to posterity, so that each Cossack,
to the very last man, might quaff it, and be inspired
with sentiments fitting to the occasion. On receiving
his command, the servants hastened to the waggon,
hewed asunder the stout ropes with their swords, removed
the thick wolf-skins and horsecloths, and drew forth
the flasks and casks.
“Take them all,” said
Bulba, “all there are; take them, that every
one may be supplied. Take jugs, or the pails
for watering the horses; take sleeve or cap; but if
you have nothing else, then hold your two hands under.”
All the Cossacks seized something:
one took a jug, another a pail, another a sleeve,
another a cap, and another held both hands. Taras’s
servants, making their way among the ranks, poured
out for all from the casks and flasks. But Taras
ordered them not to drink until he should give the
signal for all to drink together. It was evident
that he wished to say something. He knew that
however good in itself the wine might be and however
fitted to strengthen the spirit of man, yet, if a suitable
speech were linked with it, then the strength of the
wine and of the spirit would be doubled.
“I treat you, brother gentles,”
thus spoke Bulba, “not in honour of your having
made me hetman, however great such an honour may
be, nor in honour of our parting from our comrades.
To do both would be fitting at a fitting time; but
the moment before us is not such a time. The
work before us is great both in labour and in glory
for the Cossacks. Therefore let us drink all
together, let us drink before all else to the holy
orthodox faith, that the day may finally come when
it may be spread over all the world, and that everywhere
there may be but one faith, and that all Mussulmans
may become Christians. And let us also drink
together to the Setch, that it may stand long for the
ruin of the Mussulmans, and that every year there
may issue forth from it young men, each better, each
handsomer than the other. And let us drink to
our own glory, that our grandsons and their sons may
say that there were once men who were not ashamed
of comradeship, and who never betrayed each other.
Now to the faith, brother gentles, to the faith!”
“To the faith!” cried
those standing in the ranks hard by, with thick voices.
“To the faith!” those more distant took
up the cry; and all, both young and old, drank to
the faith.
“To the Setch!” said Taras,
raising his hand high above his head.
“To the Setch!” echoed
the foremost ranks. “To the Setch!”
said the old men, softly, twitching their grey moustaches;
and eagerly as young hawks, the youths repeated, “To
the Setch!” And the distant plain heard how
the Cossacks mentioned their Setch.
“Now a last draught, comrades,
to the glory of all Christians now living in the world!”
And every Cossack drank a last draught
to the glory of all Christians in the world.
And among all the ranks in the kurens they long repeated,
“To all the Christians in the world!”
The pails were empty, but the Cossacks
still stood with their hands uplifted. Although
the eyes of all gleamed brightly with the wine, they
were thinking deeply. Not of greed or the spoils
of war were they thinking now, nor of who would be
lucky enough to get ducats, fine weapons,
embroidered caftans, and Tcherkessian horses;
but they meditated like eagles perched upon the rocky
crests of mountains, from which the distant sea is
visible, dotted, as with tiny birds, with galleys,
ships, and every sort of vessel, bounded only by the
scarcely visible lines of shore, with their ports
like gnats and their forests like fine grass.
Like eagles they gazed out on all the plain, with their
fate darkling in the distance. All the plain,
with its slopes and roads, will be covered with their
white projecting bones, lavishly washed with their
Cossack blood, and strewn with shattered waggons and
with broken swords and spears; the eagles will swoop
down and tear out their Cossack eyes. But there
is one grand advantage: not a single noble deed
will be lost, and the Cossack glory will not vanish
like the tiniest grain of powder from a gun-barrel.
The guitar-player with grey beard falling upon his
breast, and perhaps a white-headed old man still full
of ripe, manly strength will come, and will speak
his low, strong words of them. And their glory
will resound through all the world, and all who are
born thereafter will speak of them; for the word of
power is carried afar, ringing like a booming brazen
bell, in which the maker has mingled much rich, pure
silver, that is beautiful sound may be borne far and
wide through the cities, villages, huts, and palaces,
summoning all betimes to holy prayer.
Chapter IX. In the city,
no one knew that one-half of the Cossacks had gone
in pursuit of the Tatars. From the tower
of the town hall the sentinel only perceived that
a part of the waggons had been dragged into the forest;
but it was thought that the Cossacks were preparing
an ambush a view taken by the French engineer
also. Meanwhile, the Koschevoi’s words
proved not unfounded, for a scarcity of provisions
arose in the city. According to a custom of past
centuries, the army did not separate as much as was
necessary. They tried to make a sortie; but half
of those who did so were instantly killed by the Cossacks,
and the other half driven back into the city with
no results. But the Jews availed themselves of
the opportunity to find out everything; whither and
why the Zaporozhtzi had departed, and with what leaders,
and which particular kurens, and their number, and
how many had remained on the spot, and what they intended
to do; in short, within a few minutes all was known
in the city.
The besieged took courage, and prepared
to offer battle. Taras had already divined it
from the noise and movement in the city, and hastened
about, making his arrangements, forming his men, and
giving orders and instructions. He ranged the
kurens in three camps, surrounding them with the waggons
as bulwarks a formation in which the Zaporozhtzi
were invincible ordered two kurens into
ambush, and drove sharp stakes, broken guns, and fragments
of spears into a part of the plain, with a view to
forcing the enemy’s cavalry upon it if an opportunity
should present itself. When all was done which
was necessary, he made a speech to the Cossacks, not
for the purpose of encouraging and freshening up their
spirits he knew their souls were strong
without that but simply because he wished
to tell them all he had upon his heart.
“I want to tell you, brother
gentles, what our brotherhood is. You have heard
from your fathers and grandfathers in what honour our
land has always been held by all. We made ourselves
known to the Greeks, and we took gold from Constantinople,
and our cities were luxurious, and we had, too, our
temples, and our princes the princes of
the Russian people, our own princes, not Catholic
unbelievers. But the Mussulmans took all; all
vanished, and we remained defenceless; yea, like a
widow after the death of a powerful husband:
defenceless was our land as well as ourselves!
Such was the time, comrades, when we joined hands in
a brotherhood: that is what our fellowship consists
in. There is no more sacred brotherhood.
The father loves his children, the mother loves her
children, the children love their father and mother;
but this is not like that, brothers. The wild
beast also loves its young. But a man can be
related only by similarity of mind and not of blood.
There have been brotherhoods in other lands, but never
any such brotherhoods as on our Russian soil.
It has happened to many of you to be in foreign lands.
You look: there are people there also, God’s
creatures, too; and you talk with them as with the
men of your own country. But when it comes to
saying a hearty word you will see.
No! they are sensible people, but not the same; the
same kind of people, and yet not the same! No,
brothers, to love as the Russian soul loves, is to
love not with the mind or anything else, but with
all that God has given, all that is within you.
Ah!” said Taras, and waved his hand, and wiped
his grey head, and twitched his moustache, and then
went on: “No, no one else can love in that
way! I know that baseness has now made its way
into our land. Men care only to have their ricks
of grain and hay, and their droves of horses, and
that their mead may be safe in their cellars; they
adopt, the devil only knows what Mussulman customs.
They speak scornfully with their tongues. They
care not to speak their real thoughts with their own
countrymen. They sell their own things to their
own comrades, like soulless creatures in the market-place.
The favour of a foreign king, and not even a king,
but the poor favour of a Polish magnate, who beats
them on the mouth with his yellow shoe, is dearer
to them than all brotherhood. But the very meanest
of these vile men, whoever he may be, given over though
he be to vileness and slavishness, even he, brothers,
has some grains of Russian feeling; and they will
assert themselves some day. And then the wretched
man will beat his breast with his hands; and will
tear his hair, cursing his vile life loudly, and ready
to expiate his disgraceful deeds with torture.
Let them know what brotherhood means on Russian soil!
And if it has come to the point that a man must die
for his brotherhood, it is not fit that any of them
should die so. No! none of them. It is not
a fit thing for their mouse-like natures.”
Thus spoke the hetman; and after
he had finished his speech he still continued to shake
his head, which had grown grey in Cossack service.
All who stood there were deeply affected by his speech,
which went to their very hearts. The oldest in
the ranks stood motionless, their grey heads drooping.
Tears trickled quietly from their aged eyes; they
wiped them slowly away with their sleeves, and then
all, as if with one consent, waved their hands in
the air at the same moment, and shook their experienced
heads. For it was evident that old Taras recalled
to them many of the best-known and finest traits of
the heart in a man who has become wise through suffering,
toil, daring, and every earthly misfortune, or, though
unknown to them, of many things felt by young, pure
spirits, to the eternal joy of the parents who bore
them.
But the army of the enemy was already
marching out of the city, sounding drums and trumpets;
and the nobles, with their arms akimbo, were riding
forth too, surrounded by innumerable servants.
The stout colonel gave his orders, and they began
to advance briskly on the Cossack camps, pointing
their matchlocks threateningly. Their eyes flashed,
and they were brilliant with brass armour. As
soon as the Cossacks saw that they had come within
gunshot, their matchlocks thundered all together, and
they continued to fire without cessation.
The détonations resounded through
the distant fields and meadows, merging into one continuous
roar. The whole plain was shrouded in smoke,
but the Zaporozhtzi continued to fire without drawing
breath the rear ranks doing nothing but
loading the guns and handing them to those in front,
thus creating amazement among the enemy, who could
not understand how the Cossacks fired without reloading.
Amid the dense smoke which enveloped both armies,
it could not be seen how first one and then another
dropped: but the Lyakhs felt that the balls flew
thickly, and that the affair was growing hot; and
when they retreated to escape from the smoke and see
how matters stood, many were missing from their ranks,
but only two or three out of a hundred were killed
on the Cossack side. Still the Cossacks went
on firing off their matchlocks without a moment’s
intermission. Even the foreign engineers were
amazed at tactics heretofore unknown to them, and
said then and there, in the presence of all, “These
Zaporozhtzi are brave fellows. That is the way
men in other lands ought to fight.” And
they advised that the cannons should at once be turned
on the camps. Heavily roared the iron cannons
with their wide throats; the earth hummed and trembled
far and wide, and the smoke lay twice as heavy over
the plain. They smelt the reek of the powder among
the squares and streets in the most distant as well
as the nearest quarters of the city. But those
who laid the cannons pointed them too high, and the
shot describing too wide a curve flew over the heads
of the camps, and buried themselves deep in the earth
at a distance, tearing the ground, and throwing the
black soil high in the air. At the sight of such
lack of skill the French engineer tore his hair, and
undertook to lay the cannons himself, heeding not the
Cossack bullets which showered round him.
Taras saw from afar that destruction
menaced the whole Nezamaikovsky and Steblikivsky kurens,
and gave a ringing shout, “Get away from the
waggons instantly, and mount your horses!” But
the Cossacks would not have succeeded in effecting
both these movements if Ostap had not dashed into
the middle of the foe and wrenched the linstocks from
six cannoneers. But he could not wrench them
from the other four, for the Lyakhs drove him back.
Meanwhile the foreign captain had taken the lunt in
his own hand to fire the largest cannon, such a cannon
as none of the Cossacks had ever beheld before.
It looked horrible with its wide mouth, and a thousand
deaths poured forth from it. And as it thundered,
the three others followed, shaking in fourfold earthquake
the dully responsive earth. Much woe did they
cause. For more than one Cossack wailed the aged
mother, beating with bony hands her feeble breast;
more than one widow was left in Glukhof, Nemirof, Chernigof,
and other cities. The loving woman will hasten
forth every day to the bazaar, grasping at all passers-by,
scanning the face of each to see if there be not among
them one dearer than all; but though many an army will
pass through the city, never among them will a single
one of all their dearest be.
Half the Nezamaikovsky kuren
was as if it had never been. As the hail suddenly
beats down a field where every ear of grain shines
like purest gold, so were they beaten down.
How the Cossacks hastened thither!
How they all started up! How raged Kukubenko,
the hetman, when he saw that the best half of
his kuren was no more! He fought his way
with his remaining Nezamaikovtzi to the very midst
of the fray, cut down in his wrath, like a cabbage,
the first man he met, hurled many a rider from his
steed, piercing both horse and man with his lance;
and making his way to the gunners, captured some of
the cannons. Here he found the hetman of
the Oumansky kuren, and Stepan Guska, hard at
work, having already seized the largest cannon.
He left those Cossacks there, and plunged with his
own into another mass of the foe, making a lane through
it. Where the Nezamaikovtzi passed there was
a street; where they turned about there was a square
as where streets meet. The foemen’s ranks
were visibly thinning, and the Lyakhs falling in sheaves.
Beside the waggons stood Vovtuzenko, and in front
Tcherevitchenko, and by the more distant ones Degtyarenko;
and behind them the kuren hetman, Vertikhvist.
Degtyarenko had pierced two Lyakhs with his spear,
and now attacked a third, a stout antagonist.
Agile and strong was the Lyakh, with glittering arms,
and accompanied by fifty followers. He fell fiercely
upon Degtyarenko, struck him to the earth, and, flourishing
his sword above him, cried, “There is not one
of you Cossack dogs who has dared to oppose me.”
“Here is one,” said Mosiy
Schilo, and stepped forward. He was a muscular
Cossack, who had often commanded at sea, and undergone
many vicissitudes. The Turks had once seized
him and his men at Trebizond, and borne them captives
to the galleys, where they bound them hand and foot
with iron chains, gave them no food for a week at a
time, and made them drink sea-water. The poor
prisoners endured and suffered all, but would not
renounce their orthodox faith. Their hetman,
Mosiy Schilo, could not bear it: he trampled
the Holy Scriptures under foot, wound the vile turban
about his sinful head, and became the favourite of
a pasha, steward of a ship, and ruler over all the
galley slaves. The poor slaves sorrowed greatly
thereat, for they knew that if he had renounced his
faith he would be a tyrant, and his hand would be the
more heavy and severe upon them. So it turned
out. Mosiy Schilo had them put in new chains,
three to an oar. The cruel fetters cut to the
very bone; and he beat them upon the back. But
when the Turks, rejoicing at having obtained such
a servant, began to carouse, and, forgetful of their
law, got all drunk, he distributed all the sixty-four
keys among the prisoners, in order that they might
free themselves, fling their chains and manacles into
the sea, and, seizing their swords, in turn kill the
Turks. Then the Cossacks collected great booty,
and returned with glory to their country; and the
guitar-players celebrated Mosiy Schilo’s exploits
for a long time. They would have elected him Koschevoi,
but he was a very eccentric Cossack. At one time
he would perform some feat which the most sagacious
would never have dreamed of. At another, folly
simply took possession of him, and he drank and squandered
everything away, was in debt to every one in the Setch,
and, in addition to that, stole like a street thief.
He carried off a whole Cossack equipment from a strange
kuren by night and pawned it to the tavern-keeper.
For this dishonourable act they bound him to a post
in the bazaar, and laid a club beside him, in order
that every one who passed should, according to the
measure of his strength, deal him a blow. But
there was not one Zaporozhetz out of them all to be
found who would raise the club against him, remembering
his former services. Such was the Cossack, Mosiy
Schilo.
“Here is one who will kill you,
dog!” he said, springing upon the Lyakh.
How they hacked away! their shoulder-plates and breast-plates
bent under their blows. The hostile Lyakh cut
through Schilo’s shirt of mail, reaching the
body itself with his blade. The Cossack’s
shirt was dyed purple: but Schilo heeded it not.
He brandished his brawny hand, heavy indeed was that
mighty fist, and brought the pommel of his sword down
unexpectedly upon his foeman’s head. The
brazen helmet flew into pieces and the Lyakh staggered
and fell; but Schilo went on hacking and cutting gashes
in the body of the stunned man. Kill not utterly
thine enemy, Cossack: look back rather!
The Cossack did not turn, and one of the dead man’s
servants plunged a knife into his neck. Schilo
turned and tried to seize him, but he disappeared
amid the smoke of the powder. On all sides rose
the roar of matchlocks. Schilo knew that his wound
was mortal. He fell with his hand upon his wound,
and said, turning to his comrades, “Farewell,
brother gentles, my comrades! may the holy Russian
land stand forever, and may it be eternally honoured!”
And as he closed his failing eyes, the Cossack soul
fled from his grim body. Then Zadorozhniy came
forward with his men, Vertikhvist issued from the ranks,
and Balaban stepped forth.
“What now, gentles?” said
Taras, calling to the hetmans by name: “there
is yet powder in the power-flasks? The Cossack
force is not weakened? the Cossacks do not yield?”
“There is yet powder in the
flasks, father; the Cossack force is not weakened
yet: the Cossacks yield not!”
And the Cossacks pressed vigorously
on: the foemen’s ranks were disordered.
The short colonel beat the assembly, and ordered eight
painted standards to be displayed to collect his men,
who were scattered over all the plain. All the
Lyakhs hastened to the standards. But they had
not yet succeeded in ranging themselves in order, when
the hetman Kukubenko attacked their centre again
with his Nezamaikovtzi and fell straight upon the
stout colonel. The colonel could not resist the
attack, and, wheeling his horse about, set out at a
gallop; but Kukubenko pursued him for a considerable
distance cross the plain and prevented him from joining
his regiment.
Perceiving this from the kuren
on the flank, Stepan Guska set out after him, lasso
in hand, bending his head to his horse’s neck.
Taking advantage of an opportunity, he cast his lasso
about his neck at the first attempt. The colonel
turned purple in the face, grasped the cord with both
hands, and tried to break it; but with a powerful thrust
Stepan drove his lance through his body, and there
he remained pinned to the earth. But Guska did
not escape his fate. The Cossacks had but time
to look round when they beheld Stepan Guska elevated
on four spears. All the poor fellow succeeded
in saying was, “May all our enemies perish,
and may the Russian land rejoice forever!” and
then he yielded up his soul.
The Cossacks glanced around, and there
was Metelitza on one side, entertaining the Lyakhs
by dealing blows on the head to one and another; on
the other side, the hetman Nevelitchkiy was attacking
with his men; and Zakrutibuga was repulsing and slaying
the enemy by the waggons. The third Pisarenko
had repulsed a whole squadron from the more distant
waggons; and they were still fighting and killing amongst
the other waggons, and even upon them.
“How now, gentles?” cried
Taras, stepping forward before them all: “is
there still powder in your flasks? Is the Cossack
force still strong? do the Cossacks yield?”
“There is still powder in the
flasks, father; the Cossack force is still strong:
the Cossacks yield not!”
But Bovdug had already fallen from
the waggons; a bullet had struck him just below the
heart. The old man collected all his strength,
and said, “I sorrow not to part from the world.
God grant every man such an end! May the Russian
land be forever glorious!” And Bovdug’s
spirit flew above, to tell the old men who had gone
on long before that men still knew how to fight on
Russian soil, and better still, that they knew how
to die for it and the holy faith.
Balaban, hetman of a kuren,
soon after fell to the ground also from a waggon.
Three mortal wounds had he received from a lance, a
bullet, and a sword. He had been one of the very
best of Cossacks, and had accomplished a great deal
as a commander on naval expeditions; but more glorious
than all the rest was his raid on the shores of Anatolia.
They collected many sequins, much valuable Turkish
plunder, caftans, and adornments of every description.
But misfortune awaited them on their way back.
They came across the Turkish fleet, and were fired
on by the ships. Half the boats were crushed
and overturned, drowning more than one; but the bundles
of reeds bound to the sides, Cossack fashion, saved
the boats from completely sinking. Balaban rowed
off at full speed, and steered straight in the face
of the sun, thus rendering himself invisible to the
Turkish ships. All the following night they spent
in baling out the water with pails and their caps,
and in repairing the damaged places. They made
sails out of their Cossack trousers, and, sailing
off, escaped from the fastest Turkish vessels.
And not only did they arrive unharmed at the Setch,
but they brought a gold-embroidered vesture for the
archimandrite at the Mezhigorsky Monastery in Kief,
and an ikon frame of pure silver for the church in
honour of the Intercession of the Virgin Mary, which
is in Zaporozhe. The guitar-players celebrated
the daring of Balaban and his Cossacks for a long
time afterwards. Now he bowed his head, feeling
the pains which precede death, and said quietly, “I
am permitted, brother gentles, to die a fine death.
Seven have I hewn in pieces, nine have I pierced with
my lance, many have I trampled upon with my horse’s
hoofs; and I no longer remember how many my bullets
have slain. May our Russian land flourish forever!”
and his spirit fled.
Cossacks, Cossacks! abandon not the
flower of your army. Already was Kukubenko surrounded,
and seven men only remained of all the Nezamaikovsky
kuren, exhausted and with garments already stained
with their blood. Taras himself, perceiving their
straits, hastened to their rescue; but the Cossacks
arrived too late. Before the enemies who surrounded
him could be driven off, a spear was buried just below
Kukubenko’s heart. He sank into the arms
of the Cossacks who caught him, and his young blood
flowed in a stream, like precious wine brought from
the cellar in a glass vessel by careless servants,
who, stumbling at the entrance, break the rich flask.
The wine streams over the ground, and the master,
hastening up, tears his hair, having reserved it, in
order that if God should grant him, in his old age,
to meet again the comrade of his youth, they might
over it recall together former days, when a man enjoyed
himself otherwise and better than now. Kukubenko
cast his eyes around, and said, “I thank God
that it has been my lot to die before your eyes, comrades.
May they live better who come after us than we have
lived; and may our Russian land, beloved by Christ,
flourish forever!” and his young spirit fled.
The angels took it in their arms and bore it to heaven:
it will be well with him there. “Sit down
at my right hand, Kukubenko,” Christ will say
to him: “you never betrayed your comrades,
you never committed a dishonourable act, you never
sold a man into misery, you preserved and defended
my church.” The death of Kukubenko saddened
them all. The Cossack ranks were terribly thinned.
Many brave men were missing, but the Cossacks still
stood their ground.
“How now, gentles,” cried
Taras to the remaining kurens: “is there
still powder in your flasks? Are your swords
blunted? Are the Cossack forces wearied?
Have the Cossacks given way?”
“There is still an abundance
of powder; our swords are still sharp; the Cossack
forces are not wearied, and the Cossacks have not yet
yielded.”
And the Cossacks again strained every
nerve, as though they had suffered no loss. Only
three kuren hetmans still remained alive.
Red blood flowed in streams everywhere; heaps of their
bodies and of those of the enemy were piled high.
Taras looked up to heaven, and there already hovered
a flock of vultures. Well, there would be prey
for some one. And there the foe were raising
Metelitza on their lances, and the head of the second
Pisarenko was dizzily opening and shutting its eyes;
and the mangled body of Okhrim Guska fell upon the
ground. “Now,” said Taras, and waved
a cloth on high. Ostap understood this signal
and springing quickly from his ambush attacked sharply.
The Lyakhs could not withstand this onslaught; and
he drove them back, and chased them straight to the
spot where the stakes and fragments of spears were
driven into the earth. The horses began to stumble
and fall and the Lyakhs to fly over their heads.
At that moment the Korsuntzi, who had stood till the
last by the baggage waggons, perceived that they still
had some bullets left, and suddenly fired a volley
from their matchlocks. The Lyakhs became confused,
and lost their presence of mind; and the Cossacks
took courage. “The victory is ours!”
rang Cossack voices on all sides; the trumpets sounded
and the banner of victory was unfurled. The beaten
Lyakhs ran in all directions and hid themselves.
“No, the victory is not yet complete,”
said Taras, glancing at the city gate; and he was
right.
The gates opened, and out dashed a
hussar band, the flower of all the cavalry. Every
rider was mounted on a matched brown horse from the
Kabardei; and in front rode the handsomest, the most
heroic of them all. His black hair streamed from
beneath his brazen helmet; and from his arm floated
a rich scarf, embroidered by the hands of a peerless
beauty. Taras sprang back in horror when he saw
that it was Andrii. And the latter meanwhile,
enveloped in the dust and heat of battle, eager to
deserve the scarf which had been bound as a gift upon
his arm, flew on like a greyhound; the handsomest,
most agile, and youngest of all the band. The
experienced huntsman urges on the greyhound, and he
springs forward, tossing up the snow, and a score
of times outrunning the hare, in the ardour of his
course. And so it was with Andrii. Old Taras
paused and observed how he cleared a path before him,
hewing away and dealing blows to the right and the
left. Taras could not restrain himself, but shouted:
“Your comrades! your comrades! you devil’s
brat, would you kill your own comrades?” But
Andrii distinguished not who stood before him, comrades
or strangers; he saw nothing. Curls, long curls,
were what he saw; and a bosom like that of a river
swan, and a snowy neck and shoulders, and all that
is created for rapturous kisses.
“Hey there, lads! only draw
him to the forest, entice him to the forest for me!”
shouted Taras. Instantly thirty of the smartest
Cossacks volunteered to entice him thither; and setting
their tall caps firmly spurred their horses straight
at a gap in the hussars. They attacked the front
ranks in flank, beat them down, cut them off from the
rear ranks, and slew many of them. Golopuitenko
struck Andrii on the back with his sword, and immediately
set out to ride away at the top of his speed.
How Andrii flew after him! How his young blood
coursed through all his veins! Driving his sharp
spurs into his horse’s flanks, he tore along
after the Cossacks, never glancing back, and not perceiving
that only twenty men at the most were following him.
The Cossacks fled at full gallop, and directed their
course straight for the forest. Andrii overtook
them, and was on the point of catching Golopuitenko,
when a powerful hand seized his horse’s bridle.
Andrii looked; before him stood Taras! He trembled
all over, and turned suddenly pale, like a student
who, receiving a blow on the forehead with a ruler,
flushes up like fire, springs in wrath from his seat
to chase his comrade, and suddenly encounters his
teacher entering the classroom; in the instant his
wrathful impulse calms down and his futile anger vanishes.
In this wise, in an instant, Andrii’s wrath
was as if it had never existed. And he beheld
before him only his terrible father.
“Well, what are we going to
do now?” said Taras, looking him straight in
the eyes. But Andrii could make no reply to this,
and stood with his eyes fixed on the ground.
“Well, son; did your Lyakhs help you?”
Andrii made no answer.
“To think that you should be
such a traitor! that you should betray your faith!
betray your comrades! Dismount from your horse!”
Obedient as a child, he dismounted,
and stood before Taras more dead than alive.
“Stand still, do not move!
I gave you life, I will also kill you!” said
Taras, and, retreating a step backwards, he brought
his gun up to his shoulder. Andrii was white
as a sheet; his lips moved gently, and he uttered
a name; but it was not the name of his native land,
nor of his mother, nor his brother; it was the name
of the beautiful Pole. Taras fired.
Like the ear of corn cut down by the
reaping-hook, like the young lamb when it feels the
deadly steel in its heart, he hung his head and rolled
upon the grass without uttering a word.
The murderer of his son stood still,
and gazed long upon the lifeless body. Even in
death he was very handsome; his manly face, so short
a time ago filled with power, and with an irresistible
charm for every woman, still had a marvellous beauty;
his black brows, like sombre velvet, set off his pale
features.
“Is he not a true Cossack?”
said Taras; “he is tall of stature, and black-browed,
his face is that of a noble, and his hand was strong
in battle! He is fallen! fallen without glory,
like a vile dog!”
“Father, what have you done?
Was it you who killed him?” said Ostap, coming
up at this moment.
Taras nodded.
Ostap gazed intently at the dead man.
He was sorry for his brother, and said at once:
“Let us give him honourable burial, father, that
the foe may not dishonour his body, nor the birds
of prey rend it.”
“They will bury him without
our help,” said Taras; “there will be plenty
of mourners and rejoicers for him.”
And he reflected for a couple of minutes,
whether he should fling him to the wolves for prey,
or respect in him the bravery which every brave man
is bound to honour in another, no matter whom?
Then he saw Golopuitenko galloping towards them and
crying: “Woe, hetman, the Lyakhs have
been reinforced, a fresh force has come to their rescue!”
Golopuitenko had not finished speaking when Vovtuzenko
galloped up: “Woe, hetman! a fresh
force is bearing down upon us.”
Vovtuzenko had not finished speaking
when Pisarenko rushed up without his horse: “Where
are you, father? The Cossacks are seeking for
you. Hetman Nevelitchkiy is killed, Zadorozhniy
is killed, and Tcherevitchenko: but the Cossacks
stand their ground; they will not die without looking
in your eyes; they want you to gaze upon them once
more before the hour of death arrives.”
“To horse, Ostap!” said
Taras, and hastened to find his Cossacks, to look
once more upon them, and let them behold their hetman
once more before the hour of death. But
before they could emerge from the wood, the enemy’s
force had already surrounded it on all sides, and horsemen
armed with swords and spears appeared everywhere between
the trees. “Ostap, Ostap! don’t yield!”
shouted Taras, and grasping his sword he began to
cut down all he encountered on every side. But
six suddenly sprang upon Ostap. They did it in
an unpropitious hour: the head of one flew off,
another turned to flee, a spear pierced the ribs of
a third; a fourth, more bold, bent his head to escape
the bullet, and the bullet striking his horse’s
breast, the maddened animal reared, fell back upon
the earth, and crushed his rider under him. “Well
done, son! Well done, Ostap!” cried Taras:
“I am following you.” And he drove
off those who attacked him. Taras hewed and fought,
dealing blows at one after another, but still keeping
his eye upon Ostap ahead. He saw that eight more
were falling upon his son. “Ostap, Ostap!
don’t yield!” But they had already overpowered
Ostap; one had flung his lasso about his neck, and
they had bound him, and were carrying him away.
“Hey, Ostap, Ostap!” shouted Taras, forcing
his way towards him, and cutting men down like cabbages
to right and left. “Hey, Ostap, Ostap!”
But something at that moment struck him like a heavy
stone. All grew dim and confused before his eyes.
In one moment there flashed confusedly before him heads,
spears, smoke, the gleam of fire, tree-trunks, and
leaves; and then he sank heavily to the earth like
a felled oak, and darkness covered his eyes.
Chapter X. “I have
slept a long while!” said Taras, coming to his
senses, as if after a heavy drunken sleep, and trying
to distinguish the objects about him. A terrible
weakness overpowered his limbs. The walls and
corners of a strange room were dimly visible before
him. At length he perceived that Tovkatch was
seated beside him, apparently listening to his every
breath.
“Yes,” thought Tovkatch,
“you might have slept forever.” But
he said nothing, only shook his finger, and motioned
him to be silent.
“But tell me where I am now?”
asked Taras, straining his mind, and trying to recollect
what had taken place.
“Be silent!” cried his
companion sternly. “Why should you want
to know? Don’t you see that you are all
hacked to pieces? Here I have been galloping
with you for two weeks without taking a breath; and
you have been burnt up with fever and talking nonsense.
This is the first time you have slept quietly.
Be silent if you don’t wish to do yourself an
injury.”
But Taras still tried to collect his
thoughts and to recall what had passed. “Well,
the Lyakhs must have surrounded and captured me.
I had no chance of fighting my way clear from the
throng.”
“Be silent, I tell you, you
devil’s brat!” cried Tovkatch angrily,
as a nurse, driven beyond her patience, cries out
at her unruly charge. “What good will it
do you to know how you got away? It is enough
that you did get away. Some people were found
who would not abandon you; let that be enough for
you. It is something for me to have ridden all
night with you. You think that you passed for
a common Cossack? No, they have offered a reward
of two thousand ducats for your head.”
“And Ostap!” cried Taras
suddenly, and tried to rise; for all at once he recollected
that Ostap had been seized and bound before his very
eyes, and that he was now in the hands of the Lyakhs.
Grief overpowered him. He pulled off and tore
in pieces the bandages from his wounds, and threw
them far from him; he tried to say something, but only
articulated some incoherent words. Fever and
delirium seized upon him afresh, and he uttered wild
and incoherent speeches. Meanwhile his faithful
comrade stood beside him, scolding and showering harsh,
reproachful words upon him without stint. Finally,
he seized him by the arms and legs, wrapped him up
like a child, arranged all his bandages, rolled him
in an ox-hide, bound him with bast, and, fastening
him with ropes to his saddle, rode with him again
at full speed along the road.
“I’ll get you there, even
if it be not alive! I will not abandon your body
for the Lyakhs to make merry over you, and cut your
body in twain and fling it into the water. Let
the eagle tear out your eyes if it must be so; but
let it be our eagle of the steppe and not a Polish
eagle, not one which has flown hither from Polish
soil. I will bring you, though it be a corpse,
to the Ukraine!”
Thus spoke his faithful companion.
He rode without drawing rein, day and night, and brought
Taras still insensible into the Zaporozhian Setch
itself. There he undertook to cure him, with unswerving
care, by the aid of herbs and liniments. He sought
out a skilled Jewess, who made Taras drink various
potions for a whole month, and at length he improved.
Whether it was owing to the medicine or to his iron
constitution gaining the upper hand, at all events,
in six weeks he was on his feet. His wounds had
closed, and only the scars of the sabre-cuts showed
how deeply injured the old Cossack had been.
But he was markedly sad and morose. Three deep
wrinkles engraved themselves upon his brow and never
more departed thence. Then he looked around him.
All was new in the Setch; all his old companions were
dead. Not one was left of those who had stood
up for the right, for faith and brotherhood. And
those who had gone forth with the Koschevoi in pursuit
of the Tatars, they also had long since disappeared.
All had perished. One had lost his head in battle;
another had died for lack of food, amid the salt marshes
of the Crimea; another had fallen in captivity and
been unable to survive the disgrace. Their former
Koschevoi was no longer living, nor any of his old
companions, and the grass was growing over those once
alert with power. He felt as one who had given
a feast, a great noisy feast. All the dishes
had been smashed in pieces; not a drop of wine was
left anywhere; the guests and servants had all stolen
valuable cups and platters; and he, like the master
of the house, stood sadly thinking that it would have
been no feast. In vain did they try to cheer Taras
and to divert his mind; in vain did the long-bearded,
grey-haired guitar-players come by twos and threes
to glorify his Cossack deeds. He gazed grimly
and indifferently at everything, with inappeasable
grief printed on his stolid face; and said softly,
as he drooped his head, “My son, my Ostap!”
The Zaporozhtzi assembled for a raid
by sea. Two hundred boats were launched on the
Dnieper, and Asia Minor saw those who manned them,
with their shaven heads and long scalp-locks, devote
her thriving shores to fire and sword; she saw the
turbans of her Mahometan inhabitants strewn, like
her innumerable flowers, over the blood-sprinkled fields,
and floating along her river banks; she saw many tarry
Zaporozhian trousers, and strong hands with black
hunting-whips. The Zaporozhtzi ate up and laid
waste all the vineyards. In the mosques they left
heaps of dung. They used rich Persian shawls
for sashes, and girded their dirty gaberdines with
them. Long afterwards, short Zaporozhian pipes
were found in those regions. They sailed merrily
back. A ten-gun Turkish ship pursued them and
scattered their skiffs, like birds, with a volley from
its guns. A third part of them sank in the depths
of the sea; but the rest again assembled, and gained
the mouth of the Dnieper with twelve kegs full of
sequins. But all this did not interest Taras.
He went off upon the steppe as though to hunt; but
the charge remained in his gun, and, laying down the
weapon, he would seat himself sadly on the shores
of the sea. He sat there long with drooping head,
repeating continually, “My Ostap, my Ostap!”
Before him spread the gleaming Black Sea; in the distant
reeds the sea-gull screamed. His grey moustache
turned to silver, and the tears fell one by one upon
it.
At last Taras could endure it no longer.
“Whatever happens, I must go and find out what
he is doing. Is he alive, or in the grave?
I will know, cost what it may!” Within a week
he found himself in the city of Ouman, fully armed,
and mounted, with lance, sword, canteen, pot of oatmeal,
powder horn, cord to hobble his horse, and other equipments.
He went straight to a dirty, ill-kept little house,
the small windows of which were almost invisible,
blackened as they were with some unknown dirt.
The chimney was wrapped in rags; and the roof, which
was full of holes, was covered with sparrows.
A heap of all sorts of refuse lay before the very
door. From the window peered the head of a Jewess,
in a head-dress with discoloured pearls.
“Is your husband at home?”
said Bulba, dismounting, and fastening his horse’s
bridle to an iron hook beside the door.
“He is at home,” said
the Jewess, and hastened out at once with a measure
of corn for the horse, and a stoup of beer for the
rider.
“Where is your Jew?”
“He is in the other room at
prayer,” replied the Jewess, bowing and wishing
Bulba good health as he raised the cup to his lips.
“Remain here, feed and water
my horse, whilst I go speak with him alone. I
have business with him.”
This Jew was the well-known Yankel.
He was there as revenue-farmer and tavern-keeper.
He had gradually got nearly all the neighbouring noblemen
and gentlemen into his hands, had slowly sucked away
most of their money, and had strongly impressed his
presence on that locality. For a distance of
three miles in all directions, not a single farm remained
in a proper state. All were falling in ruins;
all had been drunk away, and poverty and rags alone
remained. The whole neighbourhood was depopulated,
as if after a fire or an epidemic; and if Yankel had
lived there ten years, he would probably have depopulated
the Waiwode’s whole domains.
Taras entered the room. The Jew
was praying, enveloped in his dirty shroud, and was
turning to spit for the last time, according to the
forms of his creed, when his eye suddenly lighted on
Taras standing behind him. The first thing that
crossed Yankel’s mind was the two thousand ducats
offered for his visitor’s head; but he was ashamed
of his avarice, and tried to stifle within him the
eternal thought of gold, which twines, like a snake,
about the soul of a Jew.
“Listen, Yankel,” said
Taras to the Jew, who began to bow low before him,
and as he spoke he shut the door so that they might
not be seen, “I saved your life: the Zaporozhtzi
would have torn you to pieces like a dog. Now
it is your turn to do me a service.”
The Jew’s face clouded over a little.
“What service? If it is
a service I can render, why should I not render it?”
“Ask no questions. Take me to Warsaw.”
“To Warsaw? Why to Warsaw?”
said the Jew, and his brows and shoulders rose in
amazement.
“Ask me nothing. Take me
to Warsaw. I must see him once more at any cost,
and say one word to him.”
“Say a word to whom?”
“To him to Ostap to my
son.”
“Has not my lord heard that already ”
“I know, I know all. They
offer two thousand ducats for my head. They
know its value, fools! I will give you five thousand.
Here are two thousand on the spot,” and Bulba
poured out two thousand ducats from a leather
purse, “and the rest when I return.”
The Jew instantly seized a towel and
concealed the ducats under it. “Ai,
glorious money! aï, good money!” he said,
twirling one gold piece in his hand and testing it
with his teeth. “I don’t believe the
man from whom my lord took these fine gold pieces
remained in the world an hour longer; he went straight
to the river and drowned himself, after the loss of
such magnificent gold pieces.”
“I should not have asked you,
I might possibly have found my own way to Warsaw;
but some one might recognise me, and then the cursed
Lyakhs would capture me, for I am not clever at inventions;
whilst that is just what you Jews are created for.
You would deceive the very devil. You know every
trick: that is why I have come to you; and, besides,
I could do nothing of myself in Warsaw. Harness
the horse to your waggon at once and take me.”
“And my lord thinks that I can
take the nag at once, and harness him, and say ‘Get
up, Dapple!’ My lord thinks that I can take him
just as he is, without concealing him?”
“Well, hide me, hide me as you like: in
an empty cask?”
“Ai, aï! and my lord
thinks he can be concealed in an empty cask? Does
not my lord know that every man thinks that every cast
he sees contains brandy?”
“Well, let them think it is brandy.”
“Let them think it is brandy?”
said the Jew, and grasped his ear-locks with both
hands, and then raised them both on high.
“Well, why are you so frightened?”
“And does not my lord know that
God has made brandy expressly for every one to sip?
They are all gluttons and fond of dainties there:
a nobleman will run five versts after a cask; he will
make a hole in it, and as soon as he sees that nothing
runs out, he will say, ’A Jew does not carry
empty casks; there is certainly something wrong.
Seize the Jew, bind the Jew, take away all the Jew’s
money, put the Jew in prison!’ Then all the
vile people will fall upon the Jew, for every one takes
a Jew for a dog; and they think he is not a man, but
only a Jew.”
“Then put me in the waggon with some fish over
me.”
“I cannot, my lord, by heaven,
I cannot: all over Poland the people are as hungry
as dogs now. They will steal the fish, and feel
my lord.”
“Then take me in the fiend’s way, only
take me.”
“Listen, listen, my lord!”
said the Jew, turning up the ends of his sleeves,
and approaching him with extended arms. “This
is what we will do. They are building fortresses
and castles everywhere: French engineers have
come from Germany, and so a great deal of brick and
stone is being carried over the roads. Let my
lord lie down in the bottom of the waggon, and over
him I will pile bricks. My lord is strong and
well, apparently, so he will not mind if it is a little
heavy; and I will make a hole in the bottom of the
waggon in order to feed my lord.”
“Do what you will, only take me!”
In an hour, a waggon-load of bricks
left Ouman, drawn by two sorry nags. On one of
them sat tall Yankel, his long, curling ear-locks flowing
from beneath his Jewish cap, as he bounced about on
the horse, like a verst-mark planted by the roadside.
Chapter XI. At the time
when these things took place, there were as yet on
the frontiers neither custom-house officials nor guards those
bugbears of enterprising people so that
any one could bring across anything he fancied.
If any one made a search or inspection, he did it chiefly
for his own pleasure, especially if there happened
to be in the waggon objects attractive to his eye,
and if his own hand possessed a certain weight and
power. But the bricks found no admirers, and they
entered the principal gate unmolested. Bulba,
in his narrow cage, could only hear the noise, the
shouts of the driver, and nothing more. Yankel,
bouncing up and down on his dust-covered nag, turned,
after making several detours, into a dark, narrow
street bearing the names of the Muddy and also of
the Jews’ street, because Jews from nearly every
part of Warsaw were to be found here. This street
greatly resembled a back-yard turned wrong side out.
The sun never seemed to shine into it. The black
wooden houses, with numerous poles projecting from
the windows, still further increased the darkness.
Rarely did a brick wall gleam red among them; for
these too, in many places, had turned quite black.
Here and there, high up, a bit of stuccoed wall illumined
by the sun glistened with intolerable whiteness.
Pipes, rags, shells, broken and discarded tubs:
every one flung whatever was useless to him into the
street, thus affording the passer-by an opportunity
of exercising all his five senses with the rubbish.
A man on horseback could almost touch with his hand
the poles thrown across the street from one house to
another, upon which hung Jewish stockings, short trousers,
and smoked geese. Sometimes a pretty little Hebrew
face, adorned with discoloured pearls, peeped out
of an old window. A group of little Jews, with
torn and dirty garments and curly hair, screamed and
rolled about in the dirt. A red-haired Jew, with
freckles all over his face which made him look like
a sparrow’s egg, gazed from a window. He
addressed Yankel at once in his gibberish, and Yankel
at once drove into a court-yard. Another Jew came
along, halted, and entered into conversation.
When Bulba finally emerged from beneath the bricks,
he beheld three Jews talking with great warmth.
Yankel turned to him and said that
everything possible would be done; that his Ostap
was in the city jail, and that although it would be
difficult to persuade the jailer, yet he hoped to arrange
a meeting.
Bulba entered the room with the three Jews.
The Jews again began to talk among
themselves in their incomprehensible tongue.
Taras looked hard at each of them. Something seemed
to have moved him deeply; over his rough and stolid
countenance a flame of hope spread, of hope such as
sometimes visits a man in the last depths of his despair;
his aged heart began to beat violently as though he
had been a youth.
“Listen, Jews!” said he,
and there was a triumphant ring in his words.
“You can do anything in the world, even extract
things from the bottom of the sea; and it has long
been a proverb, that a Jew will steal from himself
if he takes a fancy to steal. Set my Ostap at
liberty! give him a chance to escape from their diabolical
hands. I promised this man five thousand ducats;
I will add another five thousand: all that I have,
rich cups, buried gold, houses, all, even to my last
garment, I will part with; and I will enter into a
contract with you for my whole life, to give you half
of all the booty I may gain in war.”
“Oh, impossible, dear lord,
it is impossible!” said Yankel with a sigh.
“Impossible,” said another Jew.
All three Jews looked at each other.
“We might try,” said the
third, glancing timidly at the other two. “God
may favour us.”
All three Jews discussed the matter
in German. Bulba, in spite of his straining ears,
could make nothing of it; he only caught the word
“Mardokhai” often repeated.
“Listen, my lord!” said
Yankel. “We must consult with a man such
as there never was before in the world... ugh, ugh!
as wise as Solomon; and if he will do nothing, then
no one in the world can. Sit here: this is
the key; admit no one.” The Jews went out
into the street.
Taras locked the door, and looked
out from the little window upon the dirty Jewish street.
The three Jews halted in the middle of the street
and began to talk with a good deal of warmth:
a fourth soon joined them, and finally a fifth.
Again he heard repeated, “Mardokhai, Mardokhai!”
The Jews glanced incessantly towards one side of the
street; at length from a dirty house near the end
of it emerged a foot in a Jewish shoe and the skirts
of a caftan. “Ah! Mardokhai, Mardokhai!”
shouted the Jews in one voice. A thin Jew somewhat
shorter than Yankel, but even more wrinkled, and with
a huge upper lip, approached the impatient group; and
all the Jews made haste to talk to him, interrupting
each other. During the recital, Mardokhai glanced
several times towards the little window, and Taras
divined that the conversation concerned him.
Mardokhai waved his hands, listened,
interrupted, spat frequently to one side, and, pulling
up the skirts of his caftan, thrust his hand into his
pocket and drew out some jingling thing, showing very
dirty trousers in the operation. Finally all
the Jews set up such a shouting that the Jew who was
standing guard was forced to make a signal for silence,
and Taras began to fear for his safety; but when he
remembered that Jews can only consult in the street,
and that the demon himself cannot understand their
language, he regained his composure.
Two minutes later the Jews all entered
the room together. Mardokhai approached Taras,
tapped him on the shoulder, and said, “When we
set to work it will be all right.” Taras
looked at this Solomon whom the world had never known
and conceived some hope: indeed, his face might
well inspire confidence. His upper lip was simply
an object of horror; its thickness being doubtless
increased by adventitious circumstances. This
Solomon’s beard consisted only of about fifteen
hairs, and they were on the left side. Solomon’s
face bore so many scars of battle, received for his
daring, that he had doubtless lost count of them long
before, and had grown accustomed to consider them
as birthmarks.
Mardokhai departed, accompanied by
his comrades, who were filled with admiration at his
wisdom. Bulba remained alone. He was in a
strange, unaccustomed situation for the first time
in his life; he felt uneasy. His mind was in
a state of fever. He was no longer unbending,
immovable, strong as an oak, as he had formerly been:
but felt timid and weak. He trembled at every
sound, at every fresh Jewish face which showed itself
at the end of the street. In this condition he
passed the whole day. He neither ate nor drank,
and his eye never for a moment left the small window
looking on the street. Finally, late at night,
Mardokhai and Yankel made their appearance. Taras’s
heart died within him.
“What news? have you been successful?”
he asked with the impatience of a wild horse.
But before the Jews had recovered
breath to answer, Taras perceived that Mardokhai no
longer had the locks, which had formerly fallen in
greasy curls from under his felt cap. It was
evident that he wished to say something, but he uttered
only nonsense which Taras could make nothing of.
Yankel himself put his hand very often to his mouth
as though suffering from a cold.
“Oh, dearest lord!” said
Yankel: “it is quite impossible now! by
heaven, impossible! Such vile people that they
deserve to be spit upon! Mardokhai here says
the same. Mardokhai has done what no man in the
world ever did, but God did not will that it should
be so. Three thousand soldiers are in garrison
here, and to-morrow the prisoners are all to be executed.”
Taras looked the Jew straight in the
face, but no longer with impatience or anger.
“But if my lord wishes to see
his son, then it must be early to-morrow morning,
before the sun has risen. The sentinels have consented,
and one gaoler has promised. But may he have
no happiness in the world, woe is me! What greedy
people! There are none such among us: I gave
fifty ducats to each sentinel and to the gaoler.”
“Good. Take me to him!”
exclaimed Taras, with decision, and with all his firmness
of mind restored. He agreed to Yankel’s
proposition that he should disguise himself as a foreign
count, just arrived from Germany, for which purpose
the prudent Jew had already provided a costume.
It was already night. The master of the house,
the red-haired Jew with freckles, pulled out a mattress
covered with some kind of rug, and spread it on a
bench for Bulba. Yankel lay upon the floor on
a similar mattress. The red-haired Jew drank
a small cup of brandy, took off his caftan, and betook
himself looking, in his shoes and stockings,
very like a lean chicken with his wife,
to something resembling a cupboard. Two little
Jews lay down on the floor beside the cupboard, like
a couple of dogs. But Taras did not sleep; he
sat motionless, drumming on the table with his fingers.
He kept his pipe in his mouth, and puffed out smoke,
which made the Jew sneeze in his sleep and pull his
coverlet over his nose. Scarcely was the sky
touched with the first faint gleams of dawn than he
pushed Yankel with his foot, saying: “Rise,
Jew, and give me your count’s dress!”
In a moment he was dressed. He
blackened his moustache and eyebrows, put on his head
a small dark cap; even the Cossacks who knew him best
would not have recognised him. Apparently he
was not more than thirty-five. A healthy colour
glowed on his cheeks, and his scars lent him an air
of command. The gold-embroidered dress became
him extremely well.
The streets were still asleep.
Not a single one of the market folk as yet showed
himself in the city, with his basket on his arm.
Yankel and Bulba made their way to a building which
presented the appearance of a crouching stork.
It was large, low, wide, and black; and on one side
a long slender tower like a stork’s neck projected
above the roof. This building served for a variety
of purposes; it was a barrack, a jail, and the criminal
court. The visitors entered the gate and found
themselves in a vast room, or covered courtyard.
About a thousand men were sleeping here. Straight
before them was a small door, in front of which sat
two sentries playing at some game which consisted
in one striking the palm of the other’s hand
with two fingers. They paid little heed to the
new arrivals, and only turned their heads when Yankel
said, “It is we, sirs; do you hear? it is we.”
“Go in!” said one of them,
opening the door with one hand, and holding out the
other to his comrade to receive his blows.
They entered a low and dark corridor,
which led them to a similar room with small windows
overhead. “Who goes there?” shouted
several voices, and Taras beheld a number of warriors
in full armour. “We have been ordered to
admit no one.”
“It is we!” cried Yankel;
“we, by heavens, noble sirs!” But no one
would listen to him. Fortunately, at that moment
a fat man came up, who appeared to be a commanding
officer, for he swore louder than all the others.
“My lord, it is we! you know
us, and the lord count will thank you.”
“Admit them, a hundred fiends,
and mother of fiends! Admit no one else.
And no one is to draw his sword, nor quarrel.”
The conclusion of this order the visitors
did not hear. “It is we, it is I, it is
your friends!” Yankel said to every one they
met.
“Well, can it be managed now?”
he inquired of one of the guards, when they at length
reached the end of the corridor.
“It is possible, but I don’t
know whether you will be able to gain admission to
the prison itself. Yana is not here now; another
man is keeping watch in his place,” replied
the guard.
“Ai, aï!” cried
the Jew softly: “this is bad, my dear lord!”
“Go on!” said Taras, firmly, and the Jew
obeyed.
At the arched entrance of the vaults
stood a heyduke, with a moustache trimmed in three
layers: the upper layer was trained backwards,
the second straight forward, and the third downwards,
which made him greatly resemble a cat.
The Jew shrank into nothing and approached
him almost sideways: “Your high excellency!
High and illustrious lord!”
“Are you speaking to me, Jew?”
“To you, illustrious lord.”
“Hm, but I am merely a heyduke,”
said the merry-eyed man with the triple-tiered moustache.
“And I thought it was the Waiwode
himself, by heavens! Ai, aï, aï!”
Thereupon the Jew twisted his head about and spread
out his fingers. “Ai, what a fine figure!
Another finger’s-breadth and he would be a colonel.
The lord no doubt rides a horse as fleet as the wind
and commands the troops!”
The heyduke twirled the lower tier
of his moustache, and his eyes beamed.
“What a warlike people!”
continued the Jew. “Ah, woe is me, what
a fine race! Golden cords and trappings that
shine like the sun; and the maidens, wherever they
see warriors Ai, aï!” Again
the Jew wagged his head.
The heyduke twirled his upper moustache
and uttered a sound somewhat resembling the neighing
of a horse.
“I pray my lord to do us a service!”
exclaimed the Jew: “this prince has come
hither from a foreign land, and wants to get a look
at the Cossacks. He never, in all his life, has
seen what sort of people the Cossacks are.”
The advent of foreign counts and barons
was common enough in Poland: they were often
drawn thither by curiosity to view this half-Asiatic
corner of Europe. They regarded Moscow and the
Ukraine as situated in Asia. So the heyduke bowed
low, and thought fit to add a few words of his own.
“I do not know, your excellency,”
said he, “why you should desire to see them.
They are dogs, not men; and their faith is such as
no one respects.”
“You lie, you son of Satan!”
exclaimed Bulba. “You are a dog yourself!
How dare you say that our faith is not respected?
It is your heretical faith which is not respected.”
“Oho!” said the heyduke.
“I can guess who you are, my friend; you are
one of the breed of those under my charge. So
just wait while I summon our men.”
Taras realised his indiscretion, but
vexation and obstinacy hindered him from devising
a means of remedying it. Fortunately Yankel managed
to interpose at this moment:
“Most noble lord, how is it
possible that the count can be a Cossack? If
he were a Cossack, where could have he obtained such
a dress, and such a count-like mien?”
“Explain that yourself.”
And the heyduke opened his wide mouth to shout.
“Your royal highness, silence,
silence, for heaven’s sake!” cried Yankel.
“Silence! we will pay you for it in a way you
never dreamed of: we will give you two golden
ducats.”
“Oho! two ducats!
I can’t do anything with two ducats.
I give my barber two ducats for only shaving
the half of my beard. Give me a hundred ducats,
Jew.” Here the heyduke twirled his upper
moustache. “If you don’t, I will
shout at once.”
“Why so much?” said the
Jew, sadly, turning pale, and undoing his leather
purse; but it was lucky that he had no more in it,
and that the heyduke could not count over a hundred.
“My lord, my lord, let us depart
quickly! Look at the evil-minded fellow!”
said Yankel to Taras, perceiving that the heyduke was
turning the money over in his hand as though regretting
that he had not demanded more.
“What do you mean, you devil
of a heyduke?” said Bulba. “What do
you mean by taking our money and not letting us see
the Cossacks? No, you must let us see them.
Since you have taken the money, you have no right
to refuse.”
“Go, go to the devil! If
you won’t, I’ll give the alarm this moment.
Take yourselves off quickly, I say!”
“My lord, my lord, let us go!
in God’s name let us go! Curse him!
May he dream such things that he will have to spit,”
cried poor Yankel.
Bulba turned slowly, with drooping
head, and retraced his steps, followed by the complaints
of Yankel who was sorrowing at the thought of the
wasted ducats.
“Why be angry? Let the
dog curse. That race cannot help cursing.
Oh, woe is me, what luck God sends to some people!
A hundred ducats merely for driving us off!
And our brother: they have torn off his ear-locks,
and they made wounds on his face that you cannot bear
to look at, and yet no one will give him a hundred
gold pieces. O heavens! Merciful God!”
But this failure made a much deeper
impression on Bulba, expressed by a devouring flame
in his eyes.
“Let us go,” he said,
suddenly, as if arousing himself; “let us go
to the square. I want to see how they will torture
him.”
“Oh, my lord! why go? That will do us no
good now.”
“Let us go,” said Bulba,
obstinately; and the Jew followed him, sighing like
a nurse.
The square on which the execution
was to take place was not hard to find: for the
people were thronging thither from all quarters.
In that savage age such a thing constituted one of
the most noteworthy spectacles, not only for the common
people, but among the higher classes. A number
of the most pious old men, a throng of young girls,
and the most cowardly women, who dreamed the whole
night afterwards of their bloody corpses, and shrieked
as loudly in their sleep as a drunken hussar, missed,
nevertheless, no opportunity of gratifying their curiosity.
“Ah, what tortures!” many of them would
cry, hysterically, covering their eyes and turning
away; but they stood their ground for a good while,
all the same. Many a one, with gaping mouth and
outstretched hands, would have liked to jump upon
other folk’s heads, to get a better view.
Above the crowd towered a bulky butcher, admiring the
whole process with the air of a connoisseur, and exchanging
brief remarks with a gunsmith, whom he addressed as
“Gossip,” because he got drunk in the
same alehouse with him on holidays. Some entered
into warm discussions, others even laid wagers.
But the majority were of the species who, all the
world over, look on at the world and at everything
that goes on in it and merely scratch their noses.
In the front ranks, close to the bearded civic-guards,
stood a young noble, in warlike array, who had certainly
put his whole wardrobe on his back, leaving only his
torn shirt and old shoes at his quarters. Two
chains, one above the other, hung around his neck.
He stood beside his mistress, Usisya, and glanced
about incessantly to see that no one soiled her silk
gown. He explained everything to her so perfectly
that no one could have added a word. “All
these people whom you see, my dear Usisya,” he
said, “have come to see the criminals executed;
and that man, my love, yonder, holding the axe and
other instruments in his hands, is the executioner,
who will despatch them. When he begins to break
them on the wheel, and torture them in other ways,
the criminals will still be alive; but when he cuts
off their heads, then, my love, they will die at once.
Before that, they will cry and move; but as soon as
their heads are cut off, it will be impossible for
them to cry, or to eat or drink, because, my dear,
they will no longer have any head.” Usisya
listened to all this with terror and curiosity.
The upper stories of the houses were
filled with people. From the windows in the roof
peered strange faces with beards and something resembling
caps. Upon the balconies, beneath shady awnings,
sat the aristocracy. The hands of smiling young
ladies, brilliant as white sugar, rested on the railings.
Portly nobles looked on with dignity. Servants
in rich garb, with flowing sleeves, handed round various
refreshments. Sometimes a black-eyed young rogue
would take her cake or fruit and fling it among the
crowd with her own noble little hand. The crowd
of hungry gentles held up their caps to receive it;
and some tall noble, whose head rose amid the throng,
with his faded red jacket and discoloured gold braid,
and who was the first to catch it with the aid of
his long arms, would kiss his booty, press it to his
heart, and finally put it in his mouth. The hawk,
suspended beneath the balcony in a golden cage, was
also a spectator; with beak inclined to one side,
and with one foot raised, he, too, watched the people
attentively. But suddenly a murmur ran through
the crowd, and a rumour spread, “They are coming!
they are coming! the Cossacks!”
They were bare-headed, with their
long locks floating in the air. Their beards
had grown, and their once handsome garments were worn
out, and hung about them in tatters. They walked
neither timidly nor surlily, but with a certain pride,
neither looking at nor bowing to the people. At
the head of all came Ostap.
What were old Taras’s feelings
when thus he beheld his Ostap? What filled his
heart then? He gazed at him from amid the crowd,
and lost not a single movement of his. They reached
the place of execution. Ostap stopped. He
was to be the first to drink the bitter cup. He
glanced at his comrades, raised his hand, and said
in a loud voice: “God grant that none of
the heretics who stand here may hear, the unclean dogs,
how Christians suffer! Let none of us utter a
single word.” After this he ascended the
scaffold.
“Well done, son! well done!”
said Bulba, softly, and bent his grey head.
The executioner tore off his old rags;
they fastened his hands and feet in stocks prepared
expressly, and We will not pain the reader
with a picture of the hellish tortures which would
make his hair rise upright on his head. They
were the outcome of that coarse, wild age, when men
still led a life of warfare which hardened their souls
until no sense of humanity was left in them.
In vain did some, not many, in that age make a stand
against such terrible measures. In vain did the
king and many nobles, enlightened in mind and spirit,
demonstrate that such severity of punishment could
but fan the flame of vengeance in the Cossack nation.
But the power of the king, and the opinion of the wise,
was as nothing before the savage will of the magnates
of the kingdom, who, by their thoughtlessness and
unconquerable lack of all far-sighted policy, their
childish self-love and miserable pride, converted the
Diet into the mockery of a government. Ostap
endured the torture like a giant. Not a cry,
not a groan, was heard. Even when they began to
break the bones in his hands and feet, when, amid
the death-like stillness of the crowd, the horrible
cracking was audible to the most distant spectators;
when even his tormentors turned aside their eyes, nothing
like a groan escaped his lips, nor did his face quiver.
Taras stood in the crowd with bowed head; and, raising
his eyes proudly at that moment, he said, approvingly,
“Well done, boy! well done!”
But when they took him to the last
deadly tortures, it seemed as though his strength
were failing. He cast his eyes around.
O God! all strangers, all unknown
faces! If only some of his relatives had been
present at his death! He would not have cared
to hear the sobs and anguish of his poor, weak mother,
nor the unreasoning cries of a wife, tearing her hair
and beating her white breast; but he would have liked
to see a strong man who might refresh him with a word
of wisdom, and cheer his end. And his strength
failed him, and he cried in the weakness of his soul,
“Father! where are you? do you hear?”
“I hear!” rang through
the universal silence, and those thousands of people
shuddered in concert. A detachment of cavalry
hastened to search through the throng of people.
Yankel turned pale as death, and when the horsemen
had got within a short distance of him, turned round
in terror to look for Taras; but Taras was no longer
beside him; every trace of him was lost.
Chapter XII. They soon
found traces of Taras. An army of a hundred and
twenty thousand Cossacks appeared on the frontier
of the Ukraine. This was no small detachment
sallying forth for plunder or in pursuit of the Tatars.
No: the whole nation had risen, for the measure
of the people’s patience was over-full; they
had risen to avenge the disregard of their rights,
the dishonourable humiliation of themselves, the insults
to the faith of their fathers and their sacred customs,
the outrages upon their church, the excesses of the
foreign nobles, the disgraceful domination of the
Jews on Christian soil, and all that had aroused and
deepened the stern hatred of the Cossacks for a long
time past. Hetman Ostranitza, young, but firm
in mind, led the vast Cossack force. Beside him
was seen his old and experienced friend and counsellor,
Gunya. Eight leaders led bands of twelve thousand
men each. Two osauls and a bunchuzhniy assisted
the hetman. A cornet-general carried the
chief standard, whilst many other banners and standards
floated in the air; and the comrades of the staff
bore the golden staff of the hetman, the symbol
of his office. There were also many other officials
belonging to the different bands, the baggage train
and the main force with detachments of infantry and
cavalry. There were almost as many free Cossacks
and volunteers as there were registered Cossacks.
The Cossacks had risen everywhere. They came
from Tchigirin, from Pereyaslaf, from Baturin, from
Glukhof, from the regions of the lower Dnieper, and
from all its upper shores and islands. An uninterrupted
stream of horses and herds of cattle stretched across
the plain. And among all these Cossacks, among
all these bands, one was the choicest; and that was
the band led by Taras Bulba. All contributed
to give him an influence over the others: his
advanced years, his experience and skill in directing
an army, and his bitter hatred of the foe. His
unsparing fierceness and cruelty seemed exaggerated
even to the Cossacks. His grey head dreamed of
naught save fire and sword, and his utterances at
the councils of war breathed only annihilation.
It is useless to describe all the
battles in which the Cossacks distinguished themselves,
or the gradual courses of the campaign. All this
is set down in the chronicles. It is well known
what an army raised on Russian soil, for the orthodox
faith, is like. There is no power stronger than
faith. It is threatening and invincible like a
rock, and rising amidst the stormy, ever-changing
sea. From the very bottom of the sea it rears
to heaven its jagged sides of firm, impenetrable stone.
It is visible from everywhere, and looks the waves
straight in the face as they roll past. And woe
to the ship which is dashed against it! Its frame
flies into splinters, everything in it is split and
crushed, and the startled air re-echoes the piteous
cries of the drowning.
In the pages of the chronicles there
is a minute description of how the Polish garrisons
fled from the freed cities; how the unscrupulous Jewish
tavern-keepers were hung; how powerless was the royal
hetman, Nikolai Pototzky, with his numerous army,
against this invincible force; how, routed and pursued,
he lost the best of his troops by drowning in a small
stream; how the fierce Cossack regiments besieged him
in the little town of Polon; and how, reduced to extremities,
he promised, under oath, on the part of the king and
the government, its full satisfaction to all, and
the restoration of all their rights and privileges.
But the Cossacks were not men to give way for this.
They already knew well what a Polish oath was worth.
And Pototzky would never more have pranced on his
six-thousand ducat horse from the Kabardei, attracting
the glances of distinguished ladies and the envy of
the nobility; he would never more have made a figure
in the Diet, by giving costly feasts to the senators if
the Russian priests who were in the little town had
not saved him. When all the popes, in their brilliant
gold vestments, went out to meet the Cossacks, bearing
the holy pictures and the cross, with the bishop himself
at their head, crosier in hand and mitre on his head,
the Cossacks all bowed their heads and took off their
caps. To no one lower than the king himself would
they have shown respect at such an hour; but their
daring fell before the Church of Christ, and they
honoured their priesthood. The hetman and
leaders agreed to release Pototzky, after having extracted
from him a solemn oath to leave all the Christian
churches unmolested, to forswear the ancient enmity,
and to do no harm to the Cossack forces. One leader
alone would not consent to such a peace. It was
Taras. He tore a handful of hair from his head,
and cried:
“Hetman and leaders! Commit
no such womanish deed. Trust not the Lyakhs;
slay the dogs!”
When the secretary presented the agreement,
and the hetman put his hand to it, Taras drew
a genuine Damascene blade, a costly Turkish sabre
of the finest steel, broke it in twain like a reed,
and threw the two pieces far away on each side, saying,
“Farewell! As the two pieces of this sword
will never reunite and form one sword again, so we,
comrades, shall nevermore behold each other in this
world. Remember my parting words.”
As he spoke his voice grew stronger, rose higher, and
acquired a hitherto unknown power; and his prophetic
utterances troubled them all. “Before the
death hour you will remember me! Do you think
that you have purchased peace and quiet? do you think
that you will make a great show? You will make
a great show, but after another fashion. They
will flay the skin from your head, hetman, they
will stuff it with bran, and long will it be exhibited
at fairs. Neither will you retain your heads,
gentles. You will be thrown into damp dungeons,
walled about with stone, if they do not boil you alive
in cauldrons like sheep. And you, men,”
he continued, turning to his followers, “which
of you wants to die his true death? not through sorrows
and the ale-house; but an honourable Cossack death,
all in one bed, like bride and groom? But, perhaps,
you would like to return home, and turn infidels,
and carry Polish priests on your backs?”
“We will follow you, noble leader,
we will follow you!” shouted all his band, and
many others joined them.
“If it is to be so, then follow
me,” said Taras, pulling his cap farther over
his brows. Looking menacingly at the others, he
went to his horse, and cried to his men, “Let
no one reproach us with any insulting speeches.
Now, hey there, men! we’ll call on the Catholics.”
And then he struck his horse, and there followed him
a camp of a hundred waggons, and with them many Cossack
cavalry and infantry; and, turning, he threatened
with a glance all who remained behind, and wrath was
in his eye. The band departed in full view of
all the army, and Taras continued long to turn and
glower.
The hetman and leaders were uneasy;
all became thoughtful, and remained silent, as though
oppressed by some heavy foreboding. Not in vain
had Taras prophesied: all came to pass as he
had foretold. A little later, after the treacherous
attack at Kaneva, the hetman’s head was
mounted on a stake, together with those of many of
his officers.
And what of Taras? Taras made
raids all over Poland with his band, burned eighteen
towns and nearly forty churches, and reached Cracow.
He killed many nobles, and plundered some of the richest
and finest castles. The Cossacks emptied on the
ground the century-old mead and wine, carefully hoarded
up in lordly cellars; they cut and burned the rich
garments and equipments which they found in the wardrobes.
“Spare nothing,” was the order of Taras.
The Cossacks spared not the black-browed gentlewomen,
the brilliant, white-bosomed maidens: these could
not save themselves even at the altar, for Taras burned
them with the altar itself. Snowy hands were
raised to heaven from amid fiery flames, with piteous
shrieks which would have moved the damp earth itself
to pity and caused the steppe-grass to bend with compassion
at their fate. But the cruel Cossacks paid no
heed; and, raising the children in the streets upon
the points of their lances, they cast them also into
the flames.
“This is a mass for the soul
of Ostap, you heathen Lyakhs,” was all that
Taras said. And such masses for Ostap he had sung
in every village, until the Polish Government perceived
that Taras’s raids were more than ordinary expeditions
for plunder; and Pototzky was given five regiments,
and ordered to capture him without fail.
Six days did the Cossacks retreat
along the by-roads before their pursuers; their horses
were almost equal to this unchecked flight, and nearly
saved them. But this time Pototzky was also equal
to the task intrusted to him; unweariedly he followed
them, and overtook them on the bank of the Dniester,
where Taras had taken possession of an abandoned and
ruined castle for the purpose of resting.
On the very brink of the Dniester
it stood, with its shattered ramparts and the ruined
remnants of its walls. The summit of the cliff
was strewn with ragged stones and broken bricks, ready
at any moment to detach themselves. The royal
hetman, Pototzky, surrounded it on the two sides
which faced the plain. Four days did the Cossacks
fight, tearing down bricks and stones for missiles.
But their stones and their strength were at length
exhausted, and Taras resolved to cut his way through
the beleaguering forces. And the Cossacks would
have cut their way through, and their swift steeds
might again have served them faithfully, had not Taras
halted suddenly in the very midst of their flight,
and shouted, “Halt! my pipe has dropped with
its tobacco: I won’t let those heathen
Lyakhs have my pipe!” And the old hetman
stooped down, and felt in the grass for his pipe full
of tobacco, his inseparable companion on all his expeditions
by sea and land and at home.
But in the meantime a band of Lyakhs
suddenly rushed up, and seized him by the shoulders.
He struggled with all might; but he could not scatter
on the earth, as he had been wont to do, the heydukes
who had seized him. “Oh, old age, old age!”
he exclaimed: and the stout old Cossack wept.
But his age was not to blame: nearly thirty men
were clinging to his arms and legs.
“The raven is caught!”
yelled the Lyakhs. “We must think how we
can show him the most honour, the dog!” They
decided, with the permission of the hetman, to
burn him alive in the sight of all. There stood
hard by a leafless tree, the summit of which had been
struck by lightning. They fastened him with iron
chains and nails driven through his hands high up
on the trunk of the tree, so that he might be seen
from all sides; and began at once to place fagots
at its foot. But Taras did not look at the wood,
nor did he think of the fire with which they were preparing
to roast him: he gazed anxiously in the direction
whence his Cossacks were firing. From his high
point of observation he could see everything as in
the palm of his hand.
“Take possession, men,”
he shouted, “of the hillock behind the wood:
they cannot climb it!” But the wind did not carry
his words to them. “They are lost, lost!”
he said in despair, and glanced down to where the
water of the Dniester glittered. Joy gleamed in
his eyes. He saw the sterns of four boats peeping
out from behind some bushes; exerted all the power
of his lungs, and shouted in a ringing tone, “To
the bank, to the bank, men! descend the path to the
left, under the cliff. There are boats on the
bank; take all, that they may not catch you.”
This time the breeze blew from the
other side, and his words were audible to the Cossacks.
But for this counsel he received a blow on the head
with the back of an axe, which made everything dance
before his eyes.
The Cossacks descended the cliff path
at full speed, but their pursuers were at their heels.
They looked: the path wound and twisted, and made
many detours to one side. “Comrades, we
are trapped!” said they. All halted for
an instant, raised their whips, whistled, and their
Tatar horses rose from the ground, clove the air like
serpents, flew over the precipice, and plunged straight
into the Dniester. Two only did not alight in
the river, but thundered down from the height upon
the stones, and perished there with their horses without
uttering a cry. But the Cossacks had already
swum shoreward from their horses, and unfastened the
boats, when the Lyakhs halted on the brink of the precipice,
astounded by this wonderful feat, and thinking, “Shall
we jump down to them, or not?”
One young colonel, a lively, hot-blooded
soldier, own brother to the beautiful Pole who had
seduced poor Andrii, did not reflect long, but leaped
with his horse after the Cossacks. He made three
turns in the air with his steed, and fell heavily
on the rocks. The sharp stones tore him in pieces;
and his brains, mingled with blood, bespattered the
shrubs growing on the uneven walls of the precipice.
When Taras Bulba recovered from the
blow, and glanced towards the Dniester, the Cossacks
were already in the skiffs and rowing away. Balls
were showered upon them from above but did not reach
them. And the old hetman’s eyes sparkled
with joy.
“Farewell, comrades!”
he shouted to them from above; “remember me,
and come hither again next spring and make merry in
the same fashion! What! cursed Lyakhs, have ye
caught me? Think ye there is anything in the
world that a Cossack fears? Wait; the time will
come when ye shall learn what the orthodox Russian
faith is! Already the people scent it far and
near. A czar shall arise from Russian soil, and
there shall not be a power in the world which shall
not submit to him!” But fire had already risen
from the fagots; it lapped his feet, and the flame
spread to the tree.... But can any fire, flames,
or power be found on earth which are capable of overpowering
Russian strength?
Broad is the river Dniester, and in
it are many deep pools, dense reed-beds, clear shallows
and little bays; its watery mirror gleams, filled
with the melodious plaint of the swan, the proud wild
goose glides swiftly over it; and snipe, red-throated
ruffs, and other birds are to be found among the reeds
and along the banks. The Cossacks rowed swiftly
on in the narrow double-ruddered boats rowed
stoutly, carefully shunning the sand bars, and cleaving
the ranks of the birds, which took wing rowed,
and talked of their hetman.