“Bulba took his sons into the small room. Every thing in the room was arranged according to the taste of that time; and that time was about the sixteenth century, when the idea of the union had just begun to be discussed. Every thing was clean and whitewashed. The whole wall was adorned with sabres and guns. The windows in the room were small, with round panes of ground glass, such as can be found at the present time only in old churches. On the shelves, which occupied the corners of the room, and which were made triangular in shape, were standing earthen pitchers, blue and green bottles, silver cups, gilded wine-glasses, of Venetian, Turkish, and Circassian workmanship, which had found their way into Bulba’s room in different ways,—third and fourth hand, a very ordinary thing in those bold days. The linden benches around the whole room, the huge table in the middle of it, the stove occupying half of the room, like a fat Russian merchant’s wife, and adorned with tiles with designs of cockerels,—all these things were very familiar to our two young fellows, who used to walk home almost every year to spend their vacation; they used to walk because they had no horses, and because it was not customary to allow scholars to go on horseback. They had only the long forelocks which every Kazak who carries weapons felt that he had a right to pull. Bulba, just as they were about to leave school, sent them from his stud a pair of good horses.
“‘Well [nu], little sons, before all let us have some whiskey. God bless you! to your health, my little sons; yours, Ostap, and yours, Andriï! May God grant you be always successful in battle, that you may beat the Busurmans (Mahometans), beat the Turks, beat the Tatars, and when the Poles begin to do any thing against our religion, beat the Poles too! Nu! hold up your glass. Is the whiskey good? And what is whiskey in Latin? That’s it [to-to] little son. The Latuintsui [Latins] were fools; they did not know there was such a thing as whiskey in existence. What was the name of that fellow who wrote Latin verses? I don’t know much of reading and writing, and therefore I do not remember. Wasn’t it Horatsii?’
“‘That’s a fine father,’ said the older son, Ostap, to himself. ‘The dog knows every thing, but he makes believe that he doesn’t.’
“‘I don’t believe the arkhimandrit allowed you even to smell whiskey,’ continued Bulba. ‘Well, now, little sons, tell the truth: did they lash you with cherry and maple sticks over the back, and everywhere else? Or maybe, being as you are so mighty smart, they used straps on you! I reckon that; besides Saturdays, they used to thrash you on Wednesdays and Thursdays too.’
“‘Father, there’s no need of bringing up all that,’ said Ostap, in his usual phlegmatic voice. ‘What’s past is gone.’
“‘Now we shall pay everybody off,’ said Andriï, ‘with sabres and bayonets. Just let the Tatars come in our way!’
“‘That is good, little son. By Heavens, that’s good! If that’s the case, I shall go along with you. By Heavens, I’ll go! What the devil is the good of staying here! What! must I look after the grain and swine-herds, or to fool with my wife? I stay at home for her sake? I am a Kazak. I do not want it! Well, even supposing there is no war, I am going with you to the Zaporozhe. We’ll have a good time. By Heavens, I’m going!” And the old Bulba, little by little, grew excited, and finally became entirely fierce. He got up from the table, and, trying to look dignified, stamped his foot upon the ground. ‘To-morrow we’ll go! Why put it off? What in the devil should we sit here for? What good does this hut do us? What do we want all these things for? What’s the good of these pots?’ And, while saying this, Bulba began to smash and throw about the pots and the bottles.
“The poor old wife, who was long wonted to such tricks of her husband, looked on sorrowfully as she sat on the bench. She did not dare to say a word; but after hearing this resolution, so terrible to her, she could not refrain from tears. She looked up at her children, from whom such a quick separation threatened her; and no one could describe the whole speechless force of her sorrow, which seemed to quiver in her eyes and in the tremblingly compressed lips.
“Bulba was terribly stubborn. He was one of those characters which could spring up only in the rough sixteenth century, and especially in the half-nomadic Eastern Europe, when ideas were both right and wrong as to the possession of lands which were a disputed and undecided property. At that time, the Ukraïna was in this state. The everlasting necessity of defending the border against three different nations,—all this added a sort of free and broad character to the actions of its sons, and it trained in them a stubborn spirit. This stubbornness of spirit was imprinted with full strength in Taras Bulba. When Batori raised regiments in Malo-Russia, and roused in them that warlike spirit which at first marked only the inhabitants of the Rapids, Taras was one of the first colonels; but at the first opportunity he quarrelled with all the others, because the booty obtained from the Tatars by the united forces of the Polish and Cossack armies was not equally divided between them, and because the Polish army received a greater share. He, in the presence of all, resigned his rank, and said, ‘When you colonels don’t know your own rights, then let the Devil lead you by the nose. And I am going to recruit my own regiment; and whoever will attempt to take away what belongs to me, I shall know how to wipe off his lips.’ And, in fact, in a short time he collected from his father’s estate quite a good number of men, made up of both farm-laborers and warriors, who gave themselves up entirely to his wish. He was generally a great hand for taking part in invasions and raids; he heard with his nose, as it were, where and in what place an uprising was taking place. Like snow upon the head, he would appear on his horse. ‘Nu, children, what is it? How is it? Who is to be beaten? What is the reason?’ was what he generally asked, and then took a hand in the affair. First of all, he would sternly analyze the circumstances, and he would take a hand only in cases when he saw that those who seized the weapons had really a right to do so; and this right, according to his opinion, was only in the following cases. If the nation in the neighborhood had been carrying off cattle, or cutting off a portion of land; or if the commissioners had been putting on heavy taxes, or had not respected their elders, and had spoken in their presence with their hats on; or if they had left the Christian religion,—in such cases it was inevitably necessary to take up the sabre; but against the Busurmans, Tatars, and Turks, he considered it just to use the weapon any time, in the name of God, Christianity, and Kazatchestvo (Cossackdom). The position of Malo-Russia at that time, having no system whatever, and being in perfect uncertainty, brought into existence many entirely separate partisans. Bulba led a very simple life; and it would have been impossible to distinguish him from any ordinary Kazak in the service, if his face had not preserved a certain expression of command, and even grandeur, particularly when he used to make up his mind to defend something.
“Bulba comforted himself beforehand with the thought of how he should appear now with his two sons, and say, ‘Just look what nice fellows I have brought to you.’ He thought about how he should take them to the Zaporozhe, to that school of war of the Ukraïna of that day, how he should introduce them to his comrades, and superintend their advance in the science of war and making raids, which he considered at that time one of the first qualities of a knight. At first he intended to send them off alone, because he deemed it necessary to give himself up to the enlistment of a new regiment which demanded his presence; but at the sight of his sons, who were well built and hearty, all his warrior-spirit suddenly awoke in him, and he made up his mind to go along with them on the following day, though the necessity of this was only his stubborn will.