Taras Bulba. A Tale of the Cossacks. Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
Catholic Apostolic Church of the East. Thousands of immigrants to the United States from Galicia belong to this church—and many thousands of them, including their priests, who did belong to it in the old country, have abandoned it here and returned to the church of their fathers, the Russian Orthodox Church, chiefly in consequence of the attempts which have been made here to deprive them of the last remnants of their ancient customs, including their married priesthood, and the Chrismation (Confirmation) of infants at their Baptism. The question of this "Uniate" Church is playing a very large role in the present great European War, which is known in Russia (partly because of this point which worried old Taras) as "The War of Liberation."
Of Gogol and his work in general, and of Taras Bulba in particular, it is not necessary to speak at length. It is less indispensable now than it was when, many years ago, I published translations of Dead Souls; some of the Tales from a Farm-house near Dikanko and its sequel Mirgorod; and of Taras Bulba, which forms part of the last-named volume. (The present version of Taras Bulba has been so completely revised that it is practically new.)
It will suffice to say that Nikolai V. Gogol was born in the hamlet of Sorochintzi, situated on the borders of Poltava and Mirgorod counties, in the Government of Poltava, on March 12 (some say March 19), Old Style, 1809, and died on February 21 (Old Style), 1852. The first of his Tales from a Farm-house was published In 1830. Mirgorod, the fresh series, came out in book form in 1835. Taras Bulba and most of the tales in that volume, as in the first, were of the same general romantic or fantastic character. The rest were of the naturalistic type which earned for him,—in conjunction with the rest—the position of Founder of the modern Realistic School.
Isabel F. Hapgood.
August 9, 1915.
New York,
Chapter one
I
"Hey there, son, turn round. How ridiculous you look! What's that priest's cassock you're wearing? Do all the fellows in the Academy go around in that style?"
With such words did old Bulba greet his two sons who had been studying in the Kiev preparatory school, and had just returned home to their father.
His boys had only just dismounted from their horses. They were a pair of stalwart lads, who still wore a sheepishly distrustful look, like students just out of school. Their strong, healthy faces were covered with the first down, which, as yet, had never been touched by the razor. They were very much upset by such a reception on the part of their father, and stood stock-still, with their eyes fixed upon the earth.
"Stand still! Stand still! Let me have a good look at you," he continued, turning them round. "How long your svlikas[1] are. What svitkas! There never were such svitkas in the world before. Just run, one of you! I'll see whether he won't get wound up in the skirts, and tumble on the ground!"
"Don't laugh, Dad!" said the elder of them, at last.
"See how touchy they are I Why shouldn't I laugh?"
"Because you shan't, although you are my dad; but if you do laugh, by God, I'll thrash you!"
"A nice sort of son you are! What! Your dad?" said Taras Bulba, retreating several paces in amazement.
"Yes, even my father. I don't stop to consider who deals the insult, and I spare no one."
"So you want to fight me? With your fists?"
"Any way."
"Well, come on with your fists," said Taras Bulba, stripping up his sleeves. "I'll see what sort of a fellow you are at a fight."
And father and son, in place of a friendly greeting after long separation, began to plant heavy blows on each other's ribs, back and chest, now retreating and taking each other's measure with sidelong glances, now attacking afresh.
"Look, good people! The old man has gone mad! he has lost his wits completely!" screamed their thin, pale old mother, who was standing on the threshold and had not yet managed to embrace her darling boys. "The children have come home, we have not seen them for over a year; and now the Lord only knows what he has taken into his head—he's pummelling them!"
"Yes, he's a glorious fighter," said Bulba, pausing; "by God! that was a good one!" he continued, somewhat as though he were excusing himself; "yes, although he has never tried his hand at it before. He'll make a good kazák! Now, welcome, my lad, let's greet each other;" and father and son began to exchange kisses. "Good, little son! see that you thrash every one else as you have thrashed me; don't you knuckle under to any one. All the same, your outfit is ridiculous—What's this rope hanging here?—And you, you clumsy lout, why are you standing there with your arms dangling?" said he, turning to the younger lad. "How about you, you son of a dog—why don't you also give me a licking?"
"There's another of his crazy ideas!" said the mother, who had managed, in the meantime, to embrace the younger boy. "Who ever heard of such a thing as a man's own children beating him? That will do for the present: the child is young, he has had a long journey, he is tired." (The child was over twenty, and about seven feet tall.) "He ought to rest and eat something; and he sets him to fighting!"
"Oho, I see that you've been raised a pet!" said Bulba. "Don't listen to your mother, my son; she's a woman, she doesn't know anything. What do you want with petting? Your petting is a clear field and a good horse,—that's what it is! And do you see this sword? that's your mother! All the rest of the things with which they stuff your head is rubbish; the academy, books, primers, philosophy, and all that, the devil only knows what, I spit upon it all!" And here Bulba added a word which is not used in print. "But here, now, this is the best of all: I'll take you to Zaporozhe[2] next week. There's where you'll find the sort of science that's the real thing. That's the school for you: only there will you acquire sense."
"And are they to stay at home only one week?" said the thin, old mother piteously, with tears in her eyes. "The poor boys will have no chance to go about, no chance to get acquainted with the home where they were born; I shall not have a chance to feast my eyes upon them to the full."
"Stop that, stop your howling, old woman! A kazák is not born to run around with women. You'd like to hide them both under your petticoat, and sit upon them as if they were hen's eggs. Go, get along with you, and let us have everything there is on the table in a trice. We don't want any pastry puffs, honey-cakes, poppy-cakes, or any other messes: bring us a whole sheep, give us a goat, mead forty years old, and as much corn-brandy as possible, not with raisins and all sorts of frills, but plain, sparkling brandy, which foams and hisses like mad."
Bulba led his sons into the best room of the cottage; and two handsome women servants, in coin necklaces, who were putting the rooms in order, ran out quickly. Evidently, they were frightened by the arrival of the young men, who did not care to be familiar with any one; or else they merely wanted to maintain their feminine custom of screaming and rushing off headlong at the sight of a man, and then screening their lively shame for a long time with their sleeves. The room was furnished in accordance with the fashion of that period,—concerning which vivid hints still linger in the songs and epic lyrics, that are no longer sung in the Ukraina, by bearded old blind men, to the gentle thrumming of the bandura, in the presence of the people thronging about them,—in the taste of that warlike and troublous time, when skirmishes and battles began to occur in the Ukraina over the Union.[3] Everything was neat, plastered with coloured clay. On the walls hung sabres, kazák whips, nets for birds, fishing-nets and guns, cleverly carved powder-horns, gilded bits for horses, and hobble-chains with silver disks. The windows were small, with round, dull panes, such as are to be found nowadays only in ancient churches, through which it was impossible to see without raising the one movable pane. Around the windows and doors ran incised bands painted red. On shelves in the corners stood jugs, bottles and flasks of green and blue glass,