Taras Bulba and Other Tales, by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol, Taras Bulba and Other Tales, Full Text, Никола́й Васи́льевич Го́голь (Nikolay Vasilyevich Gogol)

TARAS BULBA

1952 Russian postage stamp depicting Nikolai Gogol and his character Taras Bulba issued on the 100th anniversary of Nikolai Gogol's death

CHAPTER I

"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

home to their father.
for their education at the Royal Seminary of Kief, and had now returned


released from the seminary. Their firm healthy faces were covered with
His sons had but just dismounted from their horses. They were a couple
of stout lads who still looked bashful, as became youths recently

They were greatly discomfited by such a reception from their father, and
the first down of manhood, down which had, as yet, never known a razor.
stood motionless with eyes fixed upon the ground.

"Stand still, stand still! let me have a good look at you," he

run, one of you! I want to see whether you will not get entangled in the
continued, turning them around. "How long your gaberdines are! What
gaberdines! There never were such gaberdines in the world before. Just
skirts, and fall down."

"Don't laugh, don't laugh, father!" said the eldest lad at length.


"Yes, even my father. I don't stop to consider persons when an insult is
"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.

in question."


separation, began to deal each other heavy blows on ribs, back, and
"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

children. "The children have come home, we have not seen them for over a
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

embrace me," and father and son began to kiss each other. "Good lad! see
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!
that you hit every one as you pommelled me; don't let any one escape.

embrace her youngest. "Who ever heard of children fighting their own
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
father? That's enough for the present; the child is young, he has had

you see this sword? that's your mother! All the rest people stuff your
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
heads with is rubbish; the academy, books, primers, philosophy, and all

sadly and with tears in her eyes. "The poor boys will have no chance of
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
looking around, no chance of getting acquainted with the home where they

possible, not with raisins and all sorts of stuff, but plain scorching
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
corn-brandy, which foams and hisses like mad."


fashion of that period--a fashion concerning which hints linger only in
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
the songs and lyrics, no longer sung, alas! in the Ukraine as of yore by

moveable one. Around the windows and doors red bands were painted. On
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
shelves in one corner stood jugs, bottles, and flasks of green and

horseback. The only distinctive things permitted them were long locks of
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

Bulba and the young men, telling them they would do well and that there
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
was no better knowledge for a young man than a knowledge of that same

was such a thing in the world as corn-brandy. What was the name of the
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

"Let them try it know," said Andrii. "Let anybody just touch me, let any
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."

Tatar risk it now, and he'll soon learn what a Cossack's sword is like!"


all these things? What are pots and pans to us?" So saying, he began to
"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
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,

and home grew brave there; when, amid conflagrations, threatening
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
neighbours, and eternal terrors, they settled down, and growing

and bartering petty princes ruling in their cities, there arose great
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
colonies, kurens (3), and districts, bound together by one common danger

horseback, fully armed, receiving only one ducat from the king; and in
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
two weeks such a force had assembled as no recruiting officers would

voice, as he stood in his waggon, "Hey, you distillers and beer-brewers!
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

for warlike emotions, and was distinguished for his uprightness of
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

the customs of his ancestors; and, finally, when the enemy were
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 morrow. He delegated his power to Osaul Tovkatch, and gave with it
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
a strict command to appear with his whole force at the Setch the very

beloved sons, as they lay side by side; she smoothed with a comb their
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
carelessly tangled locks, and moistened them with her tears. She gazed

youth flitted by; her ripe cheeks and bosom withered away unkissed and
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
became covered with premature wrinkles. Love, feeling, everything that

dawn, had ceased eating and lain down upon the grass; the topmost leaves
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
of the willows began to rustle softly, and little by little the

sashes into which were thrust engraved Turkish pistols; their swords
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


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.


At the door stood the horses, ready saddled. Bulba sprang upon his
"Now, children, let us go," said Bulba.


thirty stone, for Taras was extremely stout and heavy.
"Devil," which bounded wildly, on feeling on his back a load of over


the younger, whose features expressed somewhat more gentleness than
When the mother saw that her sons were also mounted, she rushed towards

with despair in her eyes, refused to loose her hold. Two stout Cossacks
those of his brother. She grasped his stirrup, clung to his saddle, and
seized her carefully, and bore her back into the hut. But before the

horse with irresistible strength, and embraced one of her sons with mad,
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
unconscious violence. Then they led her away again.


not to show it. The morning was grey, the green sward bright, the birds
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
twittered rather discordantly. They glanced back as they rode. Their

Before them still stretched the field by which they could recall the
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.

solitary against the sky; already the level which they have traversed
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

which the Cossack always weeps, wishing that his life might be all
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
youth. He wondered whom of his former comrades he should meet at the

give their children an education, although it was afterwards utterly
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

set him down to his books. Four times did he bury his primer in the
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

who said this was that very Taras Bulba who condemned all learning, and
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

having any connection with, and never being encountered in, actual life.
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

requirements arising in fresh, strong, healthy youth, combined to arouse
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

look after the comrades entrusted to his care, had such frightfully wide
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
pockets to his trousers that he could stow away the whole contents

lictors sometimes, by their orders, lashed their consuls so severely
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
that the latter rubbed their trousers for weeks afterwards. This was to

He rarely led others into such hazardous enterprises as robbing a
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.

strange garden or orchard; but, on the other hand, he was always among

His younger brother, Andrii, had livelier and more fully developed
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.


him. When he had passed his eighteenth year, woman began to present
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

but had roamed more frequently alone, in remote corners of Kief, among
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,

his horses; they sprang forward, and Andrii, succeeding happily in
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
freeing his hands, was flung full length on the ground with his face

and deigned him no reply. At length he learned that she was the daughter
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
of the Waiwode of Koven, who had come thither for a time. The following

Moreover, there was nothing terrible about Andrii's features; he was
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.

very handsome. She laughed heartily, and amused herself over him for

called her maid, a Tatar prisoner, and gave her orders to conduct him to
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,

green embrace; and the high grass, closing round, concealed them, till
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
only their black Cossack caps appeared above it.


even as far as the Black Sea, was a green, virgin wilderness. No plough
"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,
had ever passed over the immeasurable waves of wild growth; horses

wantonly through blue waves of air. And now she has vanished on high,
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
and appears only as a black dot: now she has turned her wings, and

in white tufts, light and transparent clouds: and the freshest,
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,

the grass; their rasping, whistling, and chirping, softened by the fresh
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

nostrils snuffing the air like a greyhound's, and then disappeared like
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
an antelope on its owner perceiving that the Cossacks were thirteen

from their shores, and its waves have spread widely over the earth,
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
encountering neither cliffs nor hills. The Cossacks, alighting from

cask. But the first man they encountered was a Zaporozhetz (1) who was
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
sleeping in the very middle of the road with legs and arms outstretched.

betokened a terrible degree of recklessness. Some sturdy Zaporozhtzi
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,

blackened eye, went on measuring out without stint, to every one who
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
presented himself, a huge jugful.


the world has ever seen, still called from its mighty originators, the
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,
Kosachka.

"Oh, if I had no horse to hold," exclaimed Taras, "I would join the
dance myself."


were therefore incessant. The Cossacks thought it a nuisance to fill up
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
the intervals of this instruction with any kind of drill, except

talk current among the assembled crowd, reposing lazily on the ground,
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
were often so droll, and breathed such power of vivid narration, that

students who could not endure the academic rod, and had not carried away
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

Christ?"--"I do," replied the new-comer. "And do you believe in the
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
Holy Trinity?"--"I do."--"And do you go to church?"--"I do." "Now cross

proceeded at once to blows. The inhabitants of the kuren swarmed into
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
the square, and smote each other with their fists, until one side had

They often sallied out upon the steppe with comrades from their kuren,
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.
and sometimes too with the whole kuren or with neighbouring kurens, to

"How is it impossible? How can you say that we have no right? Here are
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."

my two sons, both young men. Neither has been to war; and you say that

with him, well knowing the result of such proceedings. The drum rattled,
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
and soon black swarms of Cossacks began to collect like bees in the

"Away with your Schilo!" yelled the crowd; "what kind of a Cossack is he
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!"

who is as thievish as a Tatar? To the devil in a sack with your drunken
Schilo!"


"How now, gentles?" announced those who had brought him, "are you agreed
"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.

that this Cossack shall be your Koschevoi?"


traversing the streets with guitars, flutes, tambourines, and the church
"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
choir, who were kept in the Setch to sing in church and glorify the

world!" Their leaders seemed surprised at these utterances. Finally 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

The Koschevoi was alarmed. He by no means wished to stir up all
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."

Zaporozhe; a breach of the truce appeared to him on this occasion

freshly planked, turned bottom upwards, caulked and tarred, and then
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

"Things have come to such a pass that our holy churches are no longer
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.

ours."


"Our hetman, roasted in a brazen ox, now lies in Warsaw; and the
"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?"


"Well, say it," said Bulba, who always liked to hear what an accused man
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!"

had to say.

"Gracious nobles," exclaimed the Jew, "such nobles were never seen, by

spoke as follows: "There will always be plenty of time to hang the Jew,
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
if it proves necessary; but for to-day give him to me."


require them at the fords and marshy places. Keep order, gentles, above
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
all things. I know that there are some among you whom God has made so

a long course. In the little wooden church the priest was offering up
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
prayers and sprinkling all worshippers with holy water. All kissed the

the Zaporozhian army; a body which, under its independent and disorderly
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

conquered in former battles, resolved to unite their forces and confront
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
the Zaporozhtzi.


of escaping, but of escaping only that he might the more surely conquer.
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


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

bullets. He knew not what it was to consider, or calculate, or to
will make a splendid leader, far surpassing even his father!"

Andrii gave himself up wholly to the enchanting music of blades and

when a man's brain burns, when all things wave and flutter before his
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

bullets and the flashing of swords, dealing blows to all, and heeding
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
not those aimed at himself. More than once their father marvelled too

could not but amaze even men grown old in battle. Old Taras admired and
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
said, "And he too will make a good warrior if the enemy does not

accomplished in a day and a half, and the Zaporozhtzi appeared before
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
the city. The inhabitants resolved to defend themselves to the utmost

wall of stone, or a house which served as a redoubt, or even an oaken
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
stockade. The garrison was strong and aware of the importance of their

down stones, casks of boiling water, and sacks of lime which blinded
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
them. The Zaporozhtzi were not fond of having anything to do with

the neighbouring villages and the ricks of unthreshed grain, and turning
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

kurens, smoked their pipes, bartered their booty for weapons, played
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

difficult enterprises or movements were on hand. The young men, and
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

But in the meantime Taras's band, led by Tovkatch, arrived; with him
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.

were also two osauls, the secretary, and other regimental officers: the

prophecy? Was it a blessing for their victory over the enemy, and then
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
a joyous return to their home with booty and glory, to be everlastingly

completely fallen; still he did not go to the kuren, nor lie down to
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

side. Swords, guns, matchlocks, short pipe-stems with copper mountings,
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
iron awls, and a flint and steel were inseparable from every Cossack.

upwards to the very stars, and floating fragments died away in the most
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
distant quarter of the heavens. Here the black, burned monastery like

sleep; the spires and roofs, and its palisade and walls, gleamed quietly
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

belt, were flooded with light. From time to time Andrii in some degree
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

exclaimed almost convulsively: "Who are you? If you are an evil spirit,
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

"Two years ago in Kief!" repeated Andrii, endeavouring to collect in
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."


"Because the old lord himself is in the city: he has been Waiwode of
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?"

Dubno for the last year and a half."


"Is there an underground passage?"
"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."


"Yes."

"Where?"


before him: again there gleamed in his memory her beautiful arms, her
"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

to him that she was dying of hunger. He jumped upon the waggon and
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

kurens--nothing anywhere. Involuntarily the saying recurred to his mind,
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

flourishing the sack over him. But Ostap did not continue his speech,
"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,
sank down again, and gave such a snore that the grass on which he lay

"There's a woman with you. When I get up I'll give you a sound
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?"


this ravine, they were completely concealed from the view of all the
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

ravine between it and the brook grew tall reeds almost as high as a man.
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
At the summit of the bank were the remains of a wattled fence, which

light." And in fact the dark earthen walls began to be gradually lit up.
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
They reached a widening in the passage where, it seemed, there had once

bones which had become softened with the dampness and were crumbling
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

Andrii involuntarily halted at the sight of a Catholic monk--one of
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.

men stood sadly, leaning against the columns upon which the wide arches
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

sunrise. The square was empty: in the middle of it still stood wooden
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

same moment, stumbled over something lying at his feet. It was the dead
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

street, from the effect of long abstinence. The ghastly victims of
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
hunger startled them at every step. Many, apparently unable to endure

"But how can you, while dying such a fearful death, still dream of
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."

defending the city?"


paid no attention to who went up the stairs. At the head of the stairs,
"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

into another room from which flashed the light of a fire. He heard a
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

girl; this was a woman in the full development of her charms. As
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
she raised her eyes, they were full of feeling, not of mere hints

voice all in a tremble. "God alone can reward you, not I, a weak woman."
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
She dropped her eyes, her lids fell over them in beautiful, snowy

her some?"
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

"She is asleep."

"And my father?"


mother brought my father, and which she still conceals from him--all
"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
this is mine! Not one of the Cossacks owns such weapons as I; for the

embroidered handkerchief and threw it over her face. In a moment it was
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

the flower of our knighthood. All loved me, and any one of them would
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

face. Every feature spoke of gnawing sorrow and, from the sadly bowed
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
brow and downcast eyes to the tears trickling down and drying on her

which is dearest of all to us. My country is--you! That is my native
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
land, and I bear that country in my heart. I will bear it there all my

him. The Ukraine will never more see the bravest of the children who
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
have undertaken to defend her. Old Taras may tear the grey hair from his

been quite just in your reprimand. The Cossacks would have been guilty,
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
and deserving of death, had they got drunk on the march, or when engaged

waggons with them. The people in the city are hungry; they will all eat
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

All began to equip themselves: they tested their swords, poured powder
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.

already seized me and thrown a rope about my neck. But I besought the
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

"Lord Andrii."
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?"


"Went where?"


nothing to eat.' And, as soon as ever the cornet's servants had set me
"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

Finally he placed his men in ambush in a wood--the only one which had
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.

not been burned by the Cossacks--whilst the Zaporozhians, foot and

they found in their ancestral castles. Many too were parasites, whom the
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

nakedness, and at having been thus taken like a dog, while asleep. His
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
hair had turned grey in one night.


such of them as had no commands rode apart with their own immediate
"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

the rider with his spear. Many heads and hands did he hew off; and slew
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
Kobita by sending a bullet through his temple.


his horse suddenly and face him, but his horse would not obey him;
"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


scared by the terrible cry, it bounded aside, and the Lyakh received

rolled from his saddle. Even then he did not surrender and strove to
Kukubenko's fire. The ball struck him in the shoulder-blade, and he
deal his enemy a blow, but his hand was weak. Kukubenko, taking his

breaking out two teeth, cut the tongue in twain, pierced the windpipe,
heavy sword in both hands, thrust it through his mouth. The sword,
and penetrated deep into the earth, nailing him to the ground. His

already left him, and was forcing his way, with his Nezamaikovsky kuren,
noble blood, red as viburnum berries beside the river, welled forth in
a stream staining his yellow, gold-embroidered caftan. But Kukubenko had
towards another group.


own hand, but such spoil I never beheld on any one." Prompted by greed,
"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

maiden's curl, cherished tenderly as a love-token. But he heeded not how
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

Borodaty's bent neck. Greed led to no good: the head rolled off, and the
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

hetman's head by its scalp-lock, and fastening it to his saddle, before
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
an avenger had arrived.


The cornet's red face became a still deeper purple as the cruel
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.

it bound him hand and foot, attached the cord to his saddle and dragged
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

their leader. At length they said, "But why consult? It is impossible to
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

time is no fitting season for that; but instantly ordered them straight
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
to the fray, and soon showed them that not in vain had they chosen him

oxen, which were gazing wildly upon the battle. The frightened oxen,
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
bellowing with fear, dashed into the camp, breaking the line of waggons

fresh vigour killing many of the enemy. Several distinguished
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
themselves--Metelitza and Schilo, both of the Pisarenki, Vovtuzenko, and

not well to approach them too closely." He spoke truly; for from the
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
ramparts the foe rained and poured down everything which came to

The Cossacks retired, preparing to go into camp; but the Lyakhs showed
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.

themselves again on the city ramparts with tattered mantles. Many rich

fresher, began to inspect the corpses and to pay them the last honours.
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
They dug graves with swords and spears, brought earth in their caps and

time of their deeds, and of the achievements which had fallen to the
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
share of each, for repetition by strangers and posterity. It was long

splendid hair; he would have trailed her after him over all the plain,
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
among all the Cossacks. Her beautiful shoulders and bosom, white as

treasures which were kept concealed in the ground, killed or carried
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
into captivity all who had remained behind, and straightway set out,

captivity, and how the Tatars were aware of the spot where the treasures
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
of the army were concealed--he was too exhausted to say. Extremely

The Koschevoi, taking off his cap and speaking not as commander, but as
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.

a comrade among comrades, thanked all the Cossacks for the honour, and

mountain heights, whose crowns are suddenly covered with sharp northern
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
frost.

"No, Koschevoi, your counsel is not good," said he. "You cannot say

All the Zaporozhtzi who were there wavered.
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."


"And have you forgotten, brave comrades," said the Koschevoi, "that

in his short pipe, which never left his mouth; and would sit so long
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

may be plentiful in the Ukraine! A Cossack's first duty and honour is to
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

their caps and shouted, "Thanks, father! He kept silence for a long,
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

to the left. Whither the majority of a kuren went thither the hetman
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
went also; and the minority attached itself to another kuren. It came

Balan, and Ostap Bulba. Besides these there were plenty of stout and
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,
distinguished warriors: Vovtuzenko, Tcherevitchenko, Stepan Guska,

had amassed any property: some caskets, cups, and bracelets were hidden
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

whether you will ever see each other alive again. Obey your hetman,
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

somewhat dusky, began to tar the waggons. All being in readiness, they
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
sent the waggons ahead, and having pulled off their caps once more to

to the soul of each with greater strength than before. Of this only the
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
Slav nature, a broad, powerful nature, which is to others what the sea

may be supplied. Take jugs, or the pails for watering the horses; take
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
sleeve or cap; but if you have nothing else, then hold your two hands

together to the Setch, that it may stand long for the ruin of the
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

they were thinking deeply. Not of greed or the spoils of war were they
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,

ringing like a booming brazen bell, in which the maker has mingled much
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,

about, making his arrangements, forming his men, and giving orders and
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

sacred brotherhood. The father loves his children, the mother loves her
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

own comrades, like soulless creatures in the market-place. The favour
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
of a foreign king, and not even a king, but the poor favour of a Polish

who has become wise through suffering, toil, daring, and every earthly
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
misfortune, or, though unknown to them, of many things felt by young,

moment's intermission. Even the foreign engineers were amazed at tactics
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 detonations 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

in his own hand to fire the largest cannon, such a cannon as none of the
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
Cossacks had ever beheld before. It looked horrible with its wide mouth,

foe, making a lane through it. Where the Nezamaikovtzi passed there was
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
a street; where they turned about there was a square as where streets

chains, three to an oar. The cruel fetters cut to the very bone; and
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
he beat them upon the back. But when the Turks, rejoicing at having

purple: but Schilo heeded it not. He brandished his brawny hand, heavy
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
indeed was that mighty fist, and brought the pommel of his sword down

attack, and, wheeling his horse about, set out at a gallop; but
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

"I sorrow not to part from the world. God grant every man such an end!
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,

a long time afterwards. Now he bowed his head, feeling the pains which
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

you never committed a dishonourable act, you never sold a man into
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,

is ours!" rang Cossack voices on all sides; the trumpets sounded and the
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

front ranks in flank, beat them down, cut them off from the rear ranks,
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

mother, nor his brother; it was the name of the beautiful Pole. Taras
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
fired.


without looking in your eyes; they want you to gaze upon them once more
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
before the hour of death arrives."


him. A terrible weakness overpowered his limbs. The walls and corners
"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
of a strange room were dimly visible before him. At length he perceived

him without stint. Finally, he seized him by the arms and legs, wrapped
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 up like a child, arranged all his bandages, rolled him in an

anywhere; the guests and servants had all stolen valuable cups and
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
platters; and he, like the master of the house, stood sadly thinking

of Ouman, fully armed, and mounted, with lance, sword, canteen, pot of
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
oatmeal, powder horn, cord to hobble his horse, and other equipments.

and poverty and rags alone remained. The whole neighbourhood was
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,


depopulated, as if after a fire or an epidemic; and if Yankel had lived

domains.
there ten years, he would probably have depopulated the Waiwode's whole

Taras entered the room. The Jew was praying, enveloped in his dirty

behind him. The first thing that crossed Yankel's mind was the two
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
thousand ducats offered for his visitor's head; but he was ashamed of

him, and as he spoke he shut the door so that they might not be seen,
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
"I saved your life: the Zaporozhtzi would have torn you to pieces like a

rose in amazement.
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


know its value, fools! I will give you five thousand. Here are two
"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
thousand on the spot," and Bulba poured out two thousand ducats from a

longer; he went straight to the river and drowned himself, after the
leather purse, "and the rest when I return."

The Jew instantly seized a towel and concealed the ducats under it. "Ai,
glorious money! ai, 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
loss of such magnificent gold pieces."


do nothing of myself in Warsaw. Harness the horse to your waggon at once
"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
and take me."


"Let them think it is brandy?" said the Jew, and grasped his ear-locks
"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, ai! 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."


carry empty casks; there is certainly something wrong. Seize the Jew,
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
bind the Jew, take away all the Jew's money, put the Jew in prison!'

sleeves, and approaching him with extended arms. "This is what we
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

In an hour, a waggon-load of bricks left Ouman, drawn by two sorry nags.
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!"


for his own pleasure, especially if there happened to be in the waggon
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

were to be found here. This street greatly resembled a back-yard turned
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

affording the passer-by an opportunity of exercising all his five senses
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
with the rubbish. A man on horseback could almost touch with his hand

halted, and entered into conversation. When Bulba finally emerged from
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,

despair; his aged heart began to beat violently as though he had been a
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
youth.


"Oh, impossible, dear lord, it is impossible!" said Yankel with a sigh.
"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."


"Impossible," said another Jew.


dirty Jewish street. The three Jews halted in the middle of the street
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

and Taras divined that the conversation concerned him.
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,


work it will be all right." Taras looked at this Solomon whom the world
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

His mind was in a state of fever. He was no longer unbending, immovable,
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.

something, but he uttered only nonsense which Taras could make nothing
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

is me! What greedy people! There are none such among us: I gave fifty
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

Two little Jews lay down on the floor beside the cupboard, like a couple
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.

The streets were still asleep. Not a single one of the market folk as
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.

yet showed himself in the city, with his basket on his arm. Yankel and

out the other to his comrade to receive his blows.
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


they at length reached the end of the corridor.
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


Thereupon the Jew twisted his head about and spread out his fingers.
"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, ai!" 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, ai, ai!"

corner of Europe. They regarded Moscow and the Ukraine as situated in
"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, ai!" 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

"Explain that yourself." And the heyduke opened his wide mouth to shout.
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?"


"Your royal highness, silence, silence, for heaven's sake!" cried

"Go, go to the devil! If you won't, I'll give the alarm this moment.
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."

Take yourselves off quickly, I say!"


The square on which the execution was to take place was not hard to
"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.


others even laid wagers. But the majority were of the species who, all
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,

impossible for them to cry, or to eat or drink, because, my dear, they
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

and with one foot raised, he, too, watched the people attentively. But
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,
suddenly a murmur ran through the crowd, and a rumour spread, "They are

picture of the hellish tortures which would make his hair rise upright
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
on his head. They were the outcome of that coarse, wild age, when men

approvingly, "Well done, boy! well done!"
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,

But when they took him to the last deadly tortures, it seemed as though

was over-full; they had risen to avenge the disregard of their rights,
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

An uninterrupted stream of horses and herds of cattle stretched across
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.

In the pages of the chronicles there is a minute description of how the
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.


their caps. To no one lower than the king himself would they have shown
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
respect at such an hour; but their daring fell before the Church of

long will it be exhibited at fairs. Neither will you retain your heads,
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

after the treacherous attack at Kaneva, the hetman's head was mounted on
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,

Six days did the Cossacks retreat along the by-roads before their
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.


by the shoulders. He struggled with all might; but he could not scatter
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
on the earth, as he had been wont to do, the heydukes who had seized

boats on the bank; take all, that they may not catch you."
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

This time the breeze blew from the other side, and his words were

were showered upon them from above but did not reach them. And the old
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
hetman's eyes sparkled with joy.


wing--rowed, and talked of their hetman.
"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.