“‘It makes no difference to me.’
“‘Nu! let us fight with fists,’ said Bulba, rolling up his sleeves.
“And the father and son, instead of saluting each other after their long separation, began to beat each other angrily.
“‘The old man must be crazy,’ said the pale, thin, and kindly mother, who was standing on the threshold, and who has not yet had a chance to embrace her beloved children. ‘By Heaven, he is crazy! Here the children have come home. For more than a year he has not seen them, and now he is doing, God knows what! To fight with fists!’
“‘Yes, he fights gloriously,’ said Bulba, stopping. [Éï Bogu!] ‘Capital!... So, so!’ he continued, adjusting himself a little. ‘There won’t be any need of trying. He will make a good Kazak.—Nu, how are you, little son? Give us a kiss.’ And the father and son began to kiss each other.
“‘Excellent, little son; pound everybody just as you have thrashed me; don’t give in to anybody. Yet you have on a funny rig. What kind of a rope is that hanging down?—And, you dog, what are you there for with your hands by your sides?’ said he, addressing the younger one. ‘Why don’t you thrash me, you son of a dog?’
“‘Now he is talking nonsense again,’ cried the mother, at the same time throwing her arms around the younger one. ‘And what nonsense gets into his head! How can a child beat his own father? As though that was all he had to tend to now. He is a little child; he has travelled such a long way, he must be tired’ (this child was more than twenty years old, and exactly a Sazhen, almost seven feet high). ‘He must need to rest now, and have something to eat; and yet he compels him to fight!’
“‘Ey! you are a little dandy [mazuntchik] I see,’ said Bulba. ‘Don’t listen, little son, to your mother: she is a baba [woman], she doesn’t know any thing. What kind of petting do you want? Your petting is the clear field and a good horse; that is your petting. And do you see this sabre? That is your mother. All they are stuffing your heads with is nonsense: the academy and all those little books—primers and philosophies—are the Devil knows what. I spit at it all. I am going to send you away next week to the Zaporozhe. That is the school for you. It is there only where you will learn reason.’
“‘Won’t they stay at home with us but one week?’ asked the thin old mother pitifully, with tears in her eyes. ‘Poor fellows, they won’t have time to enjoy themselves. They won’t get any good out of their own home, and I sha’n’t look at them half enough.’
“That’ll do, that’ll do, old woman! A Kazak’s got something better to do than spend his time with women [babas]. Hurry up, and put on the table every thing you’ve got,—poppy-seed cake [pampuskek], gingerbread, and such like; puddings we can get along without. But fetch us a whole ram for dinner, and then whiskey; and let’s have more whiskey than any thing else: not the kind with different kinds of stuff in it,—raisins, and other such things,—but straight whiskey, the unadulterated, such as’ll hiss like the devil!’