"Autunno veneziano" by Vincenzo Cardarelli; "Venetian Autumn," by Vincenzo Cardarelli, English version, translated by LiteraryJoint

Dusk in Venice, San Giorgio Maggiore by Twilight, or Sunset in Venice, by Claude Monet, between 1908 and 1912.

Presented below is "Autunno veneziano" (Venetian Autumn), one of the most well known lyrics by Italian poet Vincenzo Cardarelli (pseudonym of Nazareno Caldarelli, May 1, 1887 - June 18, 1959.)

Venetian Autumn

Upon me is the humid and cold breath
of autumnal Venice.
Now that Summer,
sultry and touched by Sirocco,
like magic has gone,
a stern moon of September
shines, full of dire forebode,
on the city of waters and stones
which reveals her features of Gorgon,
contagious and wicked.
Dead is the silence of the canals which reek,
under the watery moon,
in any one of them seems to
rest the corpse of Ophelia:
tombs covered with rotten flowers
and other green wastes,
where passes by, with a swash,
the ghost of the gondolier.
Oh Venetian nights,
without the crow of roosters,
without voices of fountains,
somber laguna-nights,
that no tender whisper soothes,
sinister houses, jealous,
vertical on the canals,
asleep without breath,
you weigh on my heart more than ever.
Here, no impetuous and funereal winds
of a September in the mountains,
no odor of grapes's harvest, no wash-basins
of tearful rains,
no crash of leaves that fall.
A tussock that turns yellow and dies
on a window's ledge
is all it is a Venetian Autumn.

Thus, in Venice seasons are delirious. 

Throughout her fields of marble and her canals
all is but disoriented lights,
lights which dream of a good earth
that is fragrant and fruitful.
Only a winter shipwreck convenes
to this city which lives not,
which blooms not,
other than like a ship does in the bottom of the sea.

From the collection "Poesie," 1942

From "Vincenzo Cardarelli: The Forgotten amongst the Great. A Collection of the Best Poems by Vincenzo Cardarelli, Translated in English," available as e-book on Amazon Kindle, iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, on NOOK Book, on Kobo, and as printed, traditional edition through Lulu.

Autunno Veneziano 

L'alito freddo e umido m'assale

di Venezia autunnale.

Adesso che l'estate,

sudaticcia e sciroccosa,

d'incanto se n'è andata,

una rigida luna settembrina

risplende, piena di funesti presagi,

sulla città d'acque e di pietre

che rivela il suo volto di medusa

contagiosa e malefica.

Morto è il silenzio dei canali fetidi,

sotto la luna acquosa,

in ciascuno dei quali

par che dorma il cadavere d'Ofelia:

tombe sparse di fiori

marci e d'altre immondizie vegetali,

dove passa sciacquando

il fantasma del gondoliere.

O notti veneziane,

senza canto di galli,

senza voci di fontane,

tetre notti lagunari

cui nessun tenero bisbiglio anima,

case torve, gelose,

a picco sui canali,

dormenti senza respiro,

io v'ho sul cuore adesso più che mai.

Qui non i venti impetuosi e funebri

del settembre montanino,

non odor di vendemmia, non lavacri

di piogge lacrimose,

non fragore di foglie che cadono.

Un ciuffo d'erba che ingiallisce e muore

su un davanzale

è tutto l'autunno veneziano.

Così a Venezia le stagioni delirano.

Pei suoi campi di marmo e i suoi canali

non son che luci smarrite,

luci che sognano la buona terra

odorosa e fruttifera.

Solo il naufragio invernale conviene

a questa città che non vive,

che non fiorisce,

se non quale una nave in fondo al mare.

Tratte da "Poesie", 1942

da PensieriParole <http://www.pensieriparole.it/poesie/poesie-d-autore/poesia-24259>

The Calash (The Carriage, 1836, Short Story) by Nikolai Gogol, Full Text English Version, English Translation. Nikolai Gogol, The Calash (The Carriage) - Коляска (повесть)

Daguerreotype of Nikolai Gogol taken in 1845 by Sergey Lvovich Levitsky (1819–1898)

THE CALASH

The town of B---- had become very lively since a cavalry regiment
had taken up its quarters in it. Up to that date it had been mortally
wearisome there. When you happened to pass through the town and glanced
at its little mud houses with their incredibly gloomy aspect, the pen
refuses to express what you felt. You suffered a terrible uneasiness
as if you had just lost all your money at play, or had committed some
terrible blunder in company. The plaster covering the houses, soaked by
the rain, had fallen away in many places from their walls, which from
white had become streaked and spotted, whilst old reeds served to thatch
them.

Following a custom very common in the towns of South Russia, the chief
of police has long since had all the trees in the gardens cut down to
improve the view. One never meets anything in the town, unless it is
a cock crossing the road, full of dust and soft as a pillow. At the
slightest rain this dust is turned into mud, and then all the streets
are filled with pigs. Displaying to all their grave faces, they utter
such grunts that travellers only think of pressing their horses to get
away from them as soon as possible. Sometimes some country gentleman of
the neighbourhood, the owner of a dozen serfs, passes in a vehicle which
is a kind of compromise between a carriage and a cart, surrounded by
sacks of flour, and whipping up his bay mare with her colt trotting by
her side. The aspect of the marketplace is mournful enough. The tailor's
house sticks out very stupidly, not squarely to the front but sideways.
Facing it is a brick house with two windows, unfinished for fifteen
years past, and further on a large wooden market-stall standing by
itself and painted mud-colour. This stall, which was to serve as a
model, was built by the chief of police in the time of his youth, before
he got into the habit of falling asleep directly after dinner, and of
drinking a kind of decoction of dried goose-berries every evening. All
around the rest of the market-place are nothing but palings. But in
the centre are some little sheds where a packet of round cakes, a stout
woman in a red dress, a bar of soap, some pounds of bitter almonds,
some lead, some cotton, and two shopmen playing at "svaika," a game
resembling quoits, are always to be seen.

But on the arrival of the cavalry regiment everything changed. The
streets became more lively and wore quite another aspect. Often from
their little houses the inhabitants would see a tall and well-made
officer with a plumed hat pass by, on his way to the quarters of one of
his comrades to discuss the chances of promotion or the qualities of a
new tobacco, or perhaps to risk at play his carriage, which might indeed
be called the carriage of all the regiment, since it belonged in turn
to every one of them. To-day it was the major who drove out in it,
to-morrow it was seen in the lieutenant's coach-house, and a week later
the major's servant was again greasing its wheels. The long hedges
separating the houses were suddenly covered with soldiers' caps exposed
to the sun, grey frieze cloaks hung in the doorways, and moustaches
harsh and bristling as clothes brushes were to be met with in all the
streets. These moustaches showed themselves everywhere, but above all
at the market, over the shoulders of the women of the place who flocked
there from all sides to make their purchases. The officers lent great
animation to society at B--.

Society consisted up till then of the judge who was living with a
deacon's wife, and of the chief of police, a very sensible man, but one
who slept all day long from dinner till evening, and from evening till
dinner-time.

This general liveliness was still further increased when the town of
B---- became the residence of the general commanding the brigade to
which the regiment belonged. Many gentlemen of the neighbourhood, whose
very existence no one had even suspected, began to come into the town
with the intention of calling on the officers, or, perhaps, of playing
bank, a game concerning which they had up till then only a very confused
notion, occupied as they were with their crops and the commissions
of their wives and their hare-hunting. I am very sorry that I cannot
recollect for what reason the general made up his mind one fine day to
give a grand dinner. The preparations were overwhelming. The clatter of
knives in the kitchen was heard as far as the town gates. The whole of
the market was laid under contributions, so much so that the judge and
the deacon's wife found themselves obliged that day to be satisfied with
hasty puddings and cakes of flour. The little courtyard of the house
occupied by the general was crowded with vehicles. The company only
consisted of men, officers and gentlemen of the neighbourhood.

Amongst these latter was above all conspicuous Pythagoras Pythagoravitch
Tchertokoutski, one of the leading aristocrats of the district of B--,
the most fiery orator at the nobiliary elections and the owner of a
very elegant turn-out. He had served in a cavalry regiment and had even
passed for one of its most accomplished officers, having constantly
shown himself at all the balls and parties wherever his regiment was
quartered. Information respecting him may be asked of all the young
ladies in the districts of Tamboff and Simbirsk. He would very probably
have further extended his reputation in other districts if he had not
been obliged to leave the service in consequence of one of those affairs
which are spoken of as "a very unpleasant business." Had he given or
received a blow? I cannot say with certainty, but what is indisputable
is that he was asked to send in his resignation. However, this accident
had no unpleasant effect upon the esteem in which he had been held up
till then.

Tchertokoutski always wore a coat of a military cut, spurs and
moustache, in order not to have it supposed that he had served in
the infantry, a branch of the service upon which he lavished the most
contemptuous expressions. He frequented the numerous fairs to which
flock the whole of the population of Southern Russia, consisting of
nursemaids, tall girls, and burly gentlemen who go there in vehicles
of such strange aspect that no one has ever seen their match even in a
dream. He instinctively guessed the spot in which a regiment of cavalry
was to be found and never failed to introduce himself to the officers.
On perceiving them he bounded gracefully from his light phaeton and soon
made acquaintance with them. At the last election he had given to the
whole of the nobility a grand dinner during which he declared that if
he were elected marshal he would put all gentlemen on the best possible
footing. He usually behaved after the fashion of a great noble. He had
married a rather pretty lady with a dowry of two hundred serfs and some
thousands of rubles. This money was at once employed in the purchase of
six fine horses, some gilt bronze locks, and a tame monkey. He further
engaged a French cook. The two hundred peasants of the lady, as well as
two hundred more belonging to the gentleman, were mortgaged to the bank.
In a word, he was a regular nobleman. Besides himself, several other
gentlemen were amongst the general's guests, but it is not worth while
speaking of them. The officers of the regiment, amongst whom were the
colonel and the fat major, formed the majority of those present.
The general himself was rather stout; a good officer, nevertheless,
according to his subordinates. He had a rather deep bass voice.

St. John's Eve (Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka) by Nikolai Gogol, Full Text English Version, English Translation. Nikolai Gogol, Saint John's Eve (Russian: Вечер накануне Ивана Купала)

Nikolai Wassiljewitsch Gogol (Никола́й Васи́льевич Го́голь), a portrait by Alexander Andrejewitsch Iwanow (Александр Андреевич Иванов)

"St. John's Eve" (Russian: Вечер накануне Ивана Купала) is the second tale in the collection "Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka," by Nikolai Gogol, first published in 1830 in the literary Russian periodical Otechestvennye Zapiski.

ST. JOHN'S EVE

A STORY TOLD BY THE SACRISTAN OF THE DIKANKA CHURCH

Thoma Grigroovitch had one very strange eccentricity: to the day of
his death he never liked to tell the same thing twice. There were times
when, if you asked him to relate a thing afresh, he would interpolate
new matter, or alter it so that it was impossible to recognise it. Once
upon a time, one of those gentlemen who, like the usurers at our yearly
fairs, clutch and beg and steal every sort of frippery, and issue mean
little volumes, no thicker than an A B C book, every month, or even
every week, wormed this same story out of Thoma Grigorovitch, and the
latter completely forgot about it. But that same young gentleman, in the
pea-green caftan, came from Poltava, bringing with him a little book,
and, opening it in the middle, showed it to us. Thoma Grigorovitch
was on the point of setting his spectacles astride of his nose, but
recollected that he had forgotten to wind thread about them and stick
them together with wax, so he passed it over to me. As I understand
nothing about reading and writing, and do not wear spectacles, I
undertook to read it. I had not turned two leaves when all at once he
caught me by the hand and stopped me.

"Stop! tell me first what you are reading."

I confess that I was a trifle stunned by such a question.

"What! what am I reading, Thoma Grigorovitch? Why, your own words."

"Who told you that they were my words?"

"Why, what more would you have? Here it is printed: 'Related by such and
such a sacristan.'"

"Spit on the head of the man who printed that! he lies, the dog of a
Moscow pedlar! Did I say that? ''Twas just the same as though one hadn't
his wits about him!' Listen. I'll tell the tale to you on the spot."

We moved up to the table, and he began.


*****


My grandfather (the kingdom of heaven be his! may he eat only wheaten
rolls and poppy-seed cakes with honey in the other world!) could tell a
story wonderfully well. When he used to begin a tale you could not
stir from the spot all day, but kept on listening. He was not like the
story-teller of the present day, when he begins to lie, with a tongue as
though he had had nothing to eat for three days, so that you snatch your
cap and flee from the house. I remember my old mother was alive then,
and in the long winter evenings when the frost was crackling out of
doors, and had sealed up hermetically the narrow panes of our cottage,
she used to sit at her wheel, drawing out a long thread in her hand,
rocking the cradle with her foot, and humming a song, which I seem to
hear even now.

The lamp, quivering and flaring up as though in fear of something,
lighted up our cottage; the spindle hummed; and all of us children,
collected in a cluster, listened to grandfather, who had not crawled
off the stove for more than five years, owing to his great age. But the
wondrous tales of the incursions of the Zaporozhian Cossacks and the
Poles, the bold deeds of Podkova, of Poltar-Kozhukh, and Sagaidatchnii,
did not interest us so much as the stories about some deed of old which
always sent a shiver through our frames and made our hair rise upright
on our heads. Sometimes such terror took possession of us in consequence
of them, that, from that evening forward, Heaven knows how wonderful
everything seemed to us. If one chanced to go out of the cottage after
nightfall for anything, one fancied that a visitor from the other world
had lain down to sleep in one's bed; and I have often taken my own
smock, at a distance, as it lay at the head of the bed, for the Evil One
rolled up into a ball! But the chief thing about grandfather's stories
was, that he never lied in all his life; and whatever he said was so,
was so.

I will now tell you one of his wonderful tales. I know that there are a
great many wise people who copy in the courts, and can even read
civil documents, but who, if you were to put into their hand a simple
prayer-book, could not make out the first letter in it, and would show
all their teeth in derision. These people laugh at everything you tell
them. Along comes one of them--and doesn't believe in witches! Yes,
glory to God that I have lived so long in the world! I have seen
heretics to whom it would be easier to lie in confession than it would
be to our brothers and equals to take snuff, and these folk would deny
the existence of witches! But let them just dream about something, and
they won't even tell what it was! There, it is no use talking about
them!

No one could have recognised the village of ours a little over a hundred
years ago; it was a hamlet, the poorest kind of a hamlet. Half a score
of miserable farmhouses, unplastered and badly thatched, were scattered
here and there about the fields. There was not a yard or a decent shed
to shelter animals or waggons. That was the way the wealthy lived:
and if you had looked for our brothers, the poor--why, a hole in the
ground--that was a cabin for you! Only by the smoke could you tell that
a God-created man lived there. You ask why they lived so? It was not
entirely through poverty: almost every one led a raiding Cossack life,
and gathered not a little plunder in foreign lands; it was rather
because it was little use building up a good wooden house. Many
folk were engaged in raids all over the country--Crimeans, Poles,
Lithuanians! It was quite possible that their own countrymen might make
a descent and plunder everything. Anything was possible.

In this hamlet a man, or rather a devil in human form, often made his
appearance. Why he came, and whence, no one knew. He prowled about, got
drunk, and suddenly disappeared as if into the air, leaving no trace
of his existence. Then, behold, he seemed to have dropped from the sky
again, and went flying about the street of the village, of which no
trace now remains, and which was not more than a hundred paces from
Dikanka. He would collect together all the Cossacks he met; then
there were songs, laughter, and cash in plenty, and vodka flowed like
water.... He would address the pretty girls, and give them ribbons,
earrings, strings of beads--more than they knew what to do with. It
is true that the pretty girls rather hesitated about accepting his
presents: God knows, perhaps, what unclean hands they had passed
through. My grandfather's aunt, who kept at that time a tavern, in which
Basavriuk (as they called this devil-man) often caroused, said that no
consideration on the earth would have induced her to accept a gift from
him. But then, again, how avoid accepting? Fear seized on every one when
he knit his shaggy brows, and gave a sidelong glance which might send
your feet God knows whither: whilst if you did accept, then the next
night some fiend from the swamp, with horns on his head, came and began
to squeeze your neck, if there was a string of beads upon it; or bite
your finger, if there was a ring upon it; or drag you by the hair, if
ribbons were braided in it. God have mercy, then, on those who held
such gifts! But here was the difficulty: it was impossible to get rid of
them; if you threw them into the water, the diabolical ring or necklace
would skim along the surface and into your hand.

There was a church in the village--St. Pantelei, if I remember rightly.
There lived there a priest, Father Athanasii of blessed memory.
Observing that Basavriuk did not come to church, even at Easter, he
determined to reprove him and impose penance upon him. Well, he hardly
escaped with his life. "Hark ye, sir!" he thundered in reply, "learn
to mind your own business instead of meddling in other people's, if you
don't want that throat of yours stuck with boiling kutya (1)." What was
to be done with this unrepentant man? Father Athanasii contented
himself with announcing that any one who should make the acquaintance
of Basavriuk would be counted a Catholic, an enemy of Christ's orthodox
church, not a member of the human race.

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."