Cossack Tales

by Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol

Andrew gave himself up to the bewitching music of bullets and swords. He understood not what it is to consider, or to calculate, or to measure the strength on one side and on the other. In battle he saw but a frantic luxury and delight; he found something festive in those moments when his brain was on fire—when everything glimmered confusedly before his eyes—when heads flew about—when horses fell with a crash on the ground, and he himself went galloping amidst the whistling of bullets and the clashing of swords, striking on every side and never feeling the strokes which he received. And old Tarass more than once was amazed at seeing Andrew, induced only by his own vehemence, rush on such deeds as no cool-minded and reflective man would have ever undertaken, and achieve solely by the madness of the attack, which could not but astonish the oldest warriors. Old Tarass wondered at Andrew and said, "This one, too, is a good warrior—may the fiend not take him! Not such a one as Ostap; but still a good—yes, a very good warrior."

It was decided that the army should push its march straight to the city of Doobno, where, as the rumour went, there was much money and many rich inhabitants. The march was accomplished in a day and a half, and the Zaporoghians appeared under the walls of the town. The citizens resolved to defend it to the last, and preferred dying in the squares and in the streets before their houses to letting the foe enter their city. A high earthen rampart surrounded it; where the rampart was lower there projected a stone wall, or a house converted into a battery, or at least a strong wooden palisade. The garrison was strong, and felt the importance of its duty. The Zaporoghians at first rushed at the ramparts, but were stopped by murderous volleys of grape-shot. The burghers and citizens of the town seemed also not to wish to remain idle, and stood in crowds on the town wall. Their looks expressed the desperation of resistance. Even women took part in the contest; and stones, casks, and pots flew down on the Zaporoghians; pitch and sacks of sand blinded their eyes.

The Zaporoghians did not like fighting against fortresses; sieges were not their business. The Koschevoï gave orders for a retreat, and said, "Never mind, gentlemen brothers, let us withdraw; but may I be rather a cursed Tartar, and not a Christian, if we allow any one to escape from the town. Let them, the dogs, perish Dy hunger!"

The army after retreating surrounded the town, and, having nothing to do, began to lay waste the country around; setting fire to the neighbouring hamlets and corn-ricks; driving herds of horses into the unreaped corn-fields, where, as if on purpose, stood the full waving ears, the produce of an abundant crop which this year had brought to all labourers. The besieged watched with horror the destruction of their means of subsistence. The Zaporoghians, in the mean time, drew up their waggons into two files all round the town, and, after dividing their encampment into koorens, as in the Ssiecha, played at leap-frog, at pitch and toss, and looked with killing coolness at the town. Bonfires were lighted at night; the cooks of each kooren boiled buckwheat in enormous copper kettles; sleepless sentinels stood all night long by the bonfires.

The Zaporoghians, however, soon began to grow weary of inactivity, principally from the tediousness of sobriety unconnected with any exertion. The Koschevoï found it even necessary to double the proportion of brandy—a practice sometimes used with the Cossacks when they were not engaged in any difficult enterprise. The young Cossacks, especially the sons of Tarass Boolba, were displeased with this mode of life. Andrew evidently was overpowered by its dulness.

"Stupid boy," said Tarass to him, "the Cossack who knows how to wait, becomes an Ataman.[25] He is not a good warrior who merely does not lose his presence of mind in danger; but he is a good warrior who does not become dull even in inactivity, and who, notwithstanding all impediments, will end by attaining his aim."

But fiery youth is no match to an old man. Both have different natures, and both look with different eyes at the same thing.

While the siege was going on, the regiment of Tarass came to join the besiegers. The Essaool Tovkach brought it; two more essaools, the secretary, and the other officials of the regiment, also came with it; the whole of this reinforcement numbered more than four thousand Cossacks. Many of them were volunteers who had come of their own accord without being summoned, as soon as they had heard of the impending business. The essaools had been intrusted by the wife of Tarass to bring her blessing to her sons, and to forward to each of them a cypress image brought from one of the monasteries of Kieff. The two brothers hung the holy images round their necks, and involuntarily gave way to their fancy at this remembrance of their old mother. What omen did this blessing bring them? Was it a blessing for vanquishing the foe, and a pledge of their gay return to their native country with booty and glory, which should be the subject of eternal songs for the players of the bandoora? or was it.... But unknown is the future! and it stands before man like the autumn fog which rises over marshes: birds are flying in it upwards and downwards, flapping their wings and seeing not one another —the dove without seeing the hawk, the hawk without seeing the dove—and every one without knowing how near he may be to death.

Ostap had long since resumed his occupations, and was going to his kooren; but Andrew, without being able to account for it, felt a heaviness at his heart. The Cossacks had already finished their supper; evening had long closed in, and a beautiful July night had encircled the earth in its embrace. Still, Andrew did not return to his kooren—did not go to sleep—but stood gazing at the picture before him. Numberless stars glimmered with a bright translucent twinkling over the skies. The field was covered with carts, placed without order, from which hung tar-pots all dripping with tar; the carts were loaded with all the booty and provisions taken from the enemy. Near the carts, beneath the carts, and at a great distance from the carts, might be seen Zaporoghians sleeping on the grass in different picturesque attitudes; one had laid his head on a corn sack, another on his cap, a third had simply chosen the ribs of his comrade for his pillow. Almost every one wore, suspended to his belt, a sabre, a matchlock and a short pipe with brass plates, wires for cleaning it, and a steel for kindling fire. The massive bullocks were reclining with their feet under their bodies; and the great white spots which they formed looked at a distance like so many grey stones thrown about the acclivities of the field. From every spot in the grass the noisy snoring of the sleeping army had begun to rise, and it was answered from the field by the sonorous neighing of the horses, indignant at having their feet tied.

A magnificent and terrific sight was now added to the beauty of the summer night. It was the blaze of the conflagration of the neighbouring country. At one place the flames went slowly and majestically along the sky; at another, meeting with something combustible in their progress, they whirled suddenly round, hissed and flew up to the very stars, and their fiery tongues disappeared in the most distant clouds. Here a burnt cloister, blackened by the fire, stood like a hard-featured Carthusian monk, showing its stern gloomy outlines at every blaze; next to it a garden was burning. It seemed as if one might hear how the trees hissed wrapt in smoke; and as the fire happened to catch some new place its phosphoric violet light shone suddenly on the ripe bunches of plums, or threw a brilliant golden hue on the yellow pears; and in the midst of all this was to be seen, dangling from the wall of the building or from the bough of a tree, the corpse of some poor Jew or monk, doomed, like the building itself, to become the prey of the flames. Over the conflagration, hovering far away, were to be seen birds looking like so many dark diminutive crosses on a fiery field. The city seemed to be slumbering; its spires, its roofs, its palisades and its walls were sometimes illuminated by the reflection of the distant conflagration.