put a small dark-coloured cap on his head--and none of his most
intimate Cossacks could have recognised him. To look at him, he seemed
to be not more than thirty-five years old. The flush of health was
on his cheeks, and even the scars on his face gave an expression of
authority to his features. The dress, adorned with gold, became him
greatly.
The city still slept. No trading chapman, basket in hand, had yet made
his appearance in the town. Boolba and Yankel came to a building which
bore great resemblance to a sitting heron. It was low, wide, bulky,
black; and on one side rose, like a stork's neck, a long narrow turret,
beyond the top of which the roof projected. This building served many
and various purposes. Here were the barracks, the prison, and even the
criminal courts. Our travellers entered the gate, and found themselves
in a large hall, or, rather, in a covered yard. There were nearly a
thousand men sleeping here together. Straight on, was a low door,
before which were sitting two sentries, who were playing at a game
which consisted in one of them slapping the other with two fingers on
the palm of the hand. The sentries paid no attention to the new-comers,
and only turned their heads when Yankel said to them, "It's we, your
worships! you hear, it's we!"
"Go!" said one of the sentries, opening the door with one hand, while
he presented the other to receive the strokes of his comrade.
They stepped into a dark narrow passage, which brought them to another
hall like the first, receiving its light from a small window in the
roof. "Who goes there?" cried several voices at once; and Tarass beheld
a great number of soldiers, armed cap-a-pie. "We cannot let any one
pass."
"It's we!" cried Yank el; "by Heavens, your worships, it's we!" But
nobody would listen to him. Fortunately, at this moment, a fat man
approached, who, by his appearance, seemed to be the chief, for he used
the most abusive language to the others.
"My lord, it's we; you already know all about us; and his lordship, the
count, will thank you still more."
"Let them go; and a hundred devils to the fiend's mother! Let no one
else pass, do not take off your swords, and do not, any of you, dare to
roll on the floor like dogs."
The continuation of the eloquent order was lost to our travellers.
"It's we; it's I; we are yours!" said Yankel to every one whom he met.
"May we go in?" he asked, of one of the sentries, as they came at last
to the end of the passage.
"Yes, you may; but I do not know if you are allowed to pass into the
gaol. Jan is no longer on duty, there is another one there now,"
answered the sentry.
"Ah! ah!" muttered the Jew; "this looks bad, my dear lord!"
"Go on," said Tarass, in a stubborn voice. The Jew obeyed.
At the door of a dungeon stood a heyduke,[41] with mustachios,
separated into three different stories: the upper story went backwards,
the middle one straight forwards, and the last downwards, which gave
the heyduke very nearly the appearance of a cat.
The Jew bent his back as much as he could, and came near him, stealing
along sideways. "Your lordship! my gracious lord!"
"Dost thou speak to me, Jew?"
"To you, gracious lord!"
"Ahem!--and I am nothing but a heyduke," said the thrice-mustachioed
face, with eyes glittering with delight.
"By Heavens! I took you for the Voevoda himself! really now, I did."
And the Jew began to shake his head and to stretch out his fingers.
"Ah! what an air of importance! By Heavens! the air of a colonel, quite
a colonel! A hair's breadth more, and it would be a colonel's. Your
worship ought only to mount a horse as swift as a fly, and command
regiments!"
The heyduke curled the nether story of his mustachios, and his eye
assumed quite an expression of gaiety.
"What a set of men you military men are," continued the Jew. "Oh dear
me! what a good set of men. And the braidings and the facings--all
these make them glitter like the sun! The girls, as soon as they behold
a military man--ah! ah!" And the Jew again shook his head.
The heyduke curled his upper mustachios, and gave vent to a sound
something like the neighing of a horse.
"Will my lord grant me a favour?" said the Jew. "Here is a prince, come
from foreign lands, who wishes to look at the Cossacks. He has never
yet, as long as he has lived, seen what kind of men these Cossacks are."
The arrival of foreign counts and barons was no uncommon thing in
Poland. They were frequently attracted, merely by curiosity, to see
this almost half-Asiatic corner of Europe--Muscovy and Ukraine being
then reputed to form part of Asia. So the heyduke, after making a
respectful bow, thought fit to add some words of his own accord.
"I do not know, your grace, what you want to look at them for," said
he; "they are not men, but dogs. Their creed, even, is such a one that
nobody respects it."
"Thou liest! devil's son!" exclaimed Boolba. "Thou art a dog thyself'!
How darest thou say that no one respects our creed? It is your
heretical creed that nobody respects!"
"Eh! my friend!" said the heyduke: "I see what thou art; thou art
thyself one of those that I have under my charge. Wait a bit; I'll just
call my comrades."
Tarass now saw his imprudence; but, stubborn and angry as he felt,
he did not think about the manner of correcting it. Happily, Yank el
interposed at this juncture.
"Most gracious lord! how is it possible that a count can be a Cossack?
and were he a Cossack, how could he have procured such a dress, and
have such a count's appearance?"
"Have done with thy tales!" And already had the heyduke opened his
wide mouth in order to give the alarm.
"Your kingly majesty, be silent! in God's name be silent!" cried
Yankel. "Be silent, and we will pay you as you have never yet thought
of being paid: we will give you two golden ducats!"
"Hem! two ducats! Two ducats are nothing to me. I give as much as that
to my barber for shaving only half my beard. A hundred ducats must thou
give me, Jew!" and the heyduke curled his upper mustachios. "And if
thou givest them not, I will call at once."
"So much as that, indeed?" said the trembling Jew, sorrowfully, untying
his leathern purse. He was fortunate in not having more in his purse,
and in the heyduke not being able to count beyond a hundred.
"Come, my lord, let us be gone quickly. You see what a bad set of men
they are here," said Yankel, seeing the heyduke was turning the money
over in his hand, as if regretting he had not asked more.
"How now? devil's heyduke!" said Boolba. "Thou hast taken the money,
and dost not think to let us in? Thou _must_ do it now; if thou hast
once received the money, thou canst no longer give us a refusal."
"Begone, begone to the devil! or I will at once make thee known, and
then, beware! Away with you, I tell you!"
"Come, my lord, in Heaven's name come. Woe to them! May they have such
dreams as shall make them spit!" urged poor Yankel.
Slowly, with drooping head, did Boolba turn back and retrace his steps,
with Yankel worrying him with reproaches at the sorrowful recollection
of the uselessly spent ducats.
"What need had you to answer them? Why not let the dog bark? They are
people who cannot remain without scolding! Oh, woe is me! how lucky
some men are! A hundred ducats, merely for driving us away! And look
at us, we may have our temple-locks torn off, we may have our faces so
disfigured that none will look at us, and nobody will give us a hundred
ducats! Heavens! merciful Heavens!"
But the miscarriage of his design had a much greater influence on
Boolba: a devouring flame streamed from his eyes.
"Come," said he, suddenly, as if recollecting himself, "let us go to
the execution; I will see how they torture him."
"What is the use of going, my lord? we cannot help him."
"Let us go," said Boolba, stubbornly, and the Jew, like a nurse,
reluctantly followed him.
The square, on which the execution was to take place could easily be
found; crowds were flocking there from all parts. At that rude epoch
an execution was one of the most attractive sights, not only for the
rabble, but also for the highest classes of society. Many of the most
pious old women, many of the most timid young girls and ladies, would
never let an execution take place without indulging their curiosity,
although they might afterwards, all night long, dream of nothing but
bloody corpses, and shriek in their slumbers as loudly as a tipsy
hussar. "Ah! what torments!" cried many in hysterics, hiding their
eyes and turning away, but, nevertheless, remaining a long time. Some
with mouth wide open and outstretched arms, would have jumped on the
heads of the rest in order to have a better view. Amongst the crowd
of small narrow ordinary heads, might be noticed the fat features
of a butcher, who looked at all the proceedings with the air of a
_dilettante_, and conversed in monosyllables with an armourer whom he
called his kinsman, because he used to get tipsy with him on feast
days at the same brandy-shop. Some vehemently debated the matter, some
even betted, but the greater part was composed of those who stare at
the world and at everything that happens in the world, picking their
noses with their fingers. In the foreground, next to the mustachioed
soldiers who formed the town guard, stood a young gentleman--or one
who gave himself the airs of a gentleman--in a military dress; he had
put on everything which he possessed, so as to leave at his lodgings
nothing but a ragged shirt and a pair of worn-out boots. Two chains,
one above the other, hung round his neck, supporting a locket. He stood
next to his sweetheart, Youzyssa, and every moment turned round to see
that nobody soiled her silk dress. He had explained to her absolutely
everything, so that there was decidedly nothing more left to explain.
"There, my soul, Youzyssa," he said, "the people that you see here are
come to look at the execution of the criminals. And there, my soul, the
man whom you see holding a hatchet and other implements in his hand,
is the executioner, and he will perform the execution. And as long as
he shall break the criminal upon the wheel and otherwise torture him,
the criminal will still be alive; but as soon as he shall behead him,
the criminal will be alive no longer. At first, my soul, he will cry
out and move, but as soon as he shall be beheaded, he will no longer be
able either to cry, or to eat, or to drink, because, my soul, he will
no longer have his head, my soul." And Youzyssa listened to all, with
awe and curiosity. The roofs of the houses were crowded with people.
Strange faces with mustachios, and with something like bonnets on
their heads, looked out from dormer windows. On the balconies, under
shades, were sitting the aristocracy. The pretty hand of some laughing
dashing lady was leaning on the balustrade. Stout lords were looking
very important. A lackey, richly attired, with sleeves thrown over his
back, was carrying about refreshments. Often did some black-eyed lively
damsel take in her white hand some dainties and fruits, and throw them
among the people beneath. A crowd of hungry gentlemen lifted their
caps to catch them, and some tall officer, with his head rising above
his neighbours', in a faded red coat and worn-out trimming, succeeded,
thanks to his long arms, in catching the booty, kissed it, pressed it
to his heart, and put it into his mouth. A falcon in a gilded cage,
hanging under the balcony, was also one of the spectators; with head
bent on one side and one leg raised, he, too, was engaged in looking
at the people. On a sudden a rumour ran through the crowd, and on all
sides voices were heard, "They are coming, the Cossacks are coming!"
Their heads, with long crown-locks, were bare, their beards were
unshaven. They walked neither timorously nor sorrowfully, but with an
air of haughty calmness; their dresses, made of fine cloth, were worn
out and falling to rags; they did not look round, and did not bow to
the people. In front of all came Ostap. What were the feelings of old
Tarass as he saw his Ostap? What was passing in his heart? He looked at
him from among the crowd, and watched his every movement. The Cossacks
came near the scaffold. Ostap stopped. He was to be the first to drink
the bitter cup. He looked at his comrades, raised his arm, and said,
in a loud voice, "God grant that none of the heretics here present may
hear, miscreants as they are, the sufferings of Christians! May none of
us utter a single word!" and he mounted the scaffold.
"Well done, my son, well done!" slowly muttered Boolba, and cast down
his gray head.
The executioner tore away from Ostap the old rags that covered him;
he tied his hands and feet to stocks made on purpose--but why should
the reader be distressed by a description, which would make his hair
stand on end, of the hellish tortures? They were the creation of those
hard cruel times when man knew no other life but the bloody life of
warlike feats, which hardened his heart and drove from it every human
feeling. In vain some men, the few exceptions of that epoch, opposed
those dreadful measures. In vain did the king and several knights,
enlightened both in mind and heart, remonstrate that this cruelty in
punishment would but aggravate the revengefulness of the Cossacks. The
royal power and the authority of wise counsels were not proof against
the anarchy and the audacious self-will of the state magnates who,
with their recklessness, their inconceivable want of foresight, their
childish vanity, and their absurd ostentation, made the Sseim[42] a
mere satire on self-government.
Ostap bore the torments and the tortures like a giant. Not a cry, not
a groan was heard; even when they began to break the bones in his
hands and feet, when their dreadful crunching was heard amidst the
dead silence of the crowd by the remotest spectators, when the ladies
averted their eyes, even then nothing like a moan escaped his lips; no
feature of his face moved. Tarass stood in the crowd, with bowed head,
and from time to time, proudly raising his eyes, said approvingly,
"Well done, son, well done!"
But when Ostap was brought to the last torments of death, his strength
seemed to give way. He looked round. Gracious God! All unknown! all
strangers' faces! Had there been but one of his kin present! He wished
not to listen to the wailings and the sorrow of a weak mother, or to
the insane sobs of a wife, tearing her hair and beating her bosom; he
wished to have looked now at a firm man, whose wise word might have
brought him fresh strength and solace before death. And his strength
failed him, and he cried in the agony of his heart, "Father, where art
thou? couldst thou but hear me!"
"I hear!" resounded through the general stillness, and all the
thousands of people shuddered at the voice. A party of cavalry-soldiers
rushed to make search among the crowds of people. Yankel turned pale
as death, and when the riders had ridden past him, he looked back in
amazement to see Tarass, but Tarass was no longer near him, no trace of
him was left!
XII.
Traces of Tarass were soon found. A hundred and twenty thousand
Cossacks made their appearance on the frontiers of Ukraine. It was
no longer a small marauding party come in search of booty, or a
detachment in pursuit of Tartars. Not so: it was the whole of the
nation which had risen at once, because its patience was at an end.
It had risen to avenge the derision of its rights, the shameful
humiliation of its customs, the insults inflicted upon the creed of
its fathers, and upon the holy rites, the disgrace of its church, the
licentiousness of foreign lords, the Union,[43] the shameful dominion
of Jews in a Christian country, and all that had so long consolidated
and ripened the stern hatred of the Cossacks. The young but spirited
hetman, Astranitza, was the leader of the whole Cossack army. He
was accompanied by his old and experienced comrade and councillor
Ploonia. Eight colonels led regiments, each twelve thousand strong. Two
general _essaools_ and the general _boonchook_[44] bearer followed the
hetman. The general banner bearer escorted the great banner; many more
banners and standards floated in the distance behind; the lieutenants
of the boonchook bearer escorted the boonchooks. There were many
other officials, leaders of waggons, lieutenants of regiments, and
secretaries, and with them infantry and cavalry regiments; moreover,
the number of volunteers was nearly as great as that of the registered
Cossacks. From every side had the Cossacks risen, from all the towns of
Little Russia, from the western as well as from the eastern part of the
Dnieper, and from all its islands. Horses and waggons without number
crossed the plains. And among all these Cossacks, among all these
eight regiments, one regiment was the choicest--this regiment was led
by Tarass Boolba. Everything gave him precedence over the others--his
old age, his experience, his skill in leading his troops, and his
inveterate hatred of the foe. Even the Cossacks thought his unsparing
cruelty and ferocity too excessive. His gray head adjudged nothing but
fire and gallows, and nothing but destruction did he advise in the
councils of war.
It would he useless to relate all the battles where the Cossacks gained
distinction, or the gradual progress of the war; all this has found its
place in the pages of our annals. It is well known what, in Russia, a
war begun for the Faith signifies. No power is stronger than that of
the Faith. Unconquerable and terrible, it is like the rock in the midst
of a stormy ever-changing sea. Formed of one single massive stone, it
raises to the sky its indestructible walls from the very centre of
the bottom of the sea. From every point it may be seen looking full
on the passing waves. And woe to the ship that is cast upon it! Its
fragile masts will fly to splinters, all those upon it are crushed
and precipitated into the depths of the ocean, and far away the air
resounds with the shrieks of its drowning sailors!
The annals minutely record how the Polish garrisons fled from the
towns liberated by the Cossacks; how the rapacious Jew farmers were
hanged; how weak the opposition was of the Polish hetman, Nicholas
Potozki, with his numerous army against the unconquerable forces of
the Cossacks; how, after being defeated and pursued, he let the best
part of his army perish in a small stream; how he was surrounded by the
dreaded Cossack regiments in the small borough of Polonnoie; and how,
brought to extremity, he took his oath to the complete redress of all
grievances, and the surrender of all former rights and privileges, in
the name of the king and of the ministers of state. But the Cossacks
were not men to be deceived, they knew what the oath of a Pole is
worth; and never again would Potozki have ridden on his costly steed,
attracting the looks of illustrious ladies, and making himself the envy
of the nobility--never again would he have set the Sseim in an uproar,
and have given rich feasts to the senators--had not the Russian clergy
of the borough interposed on his behalf. As the priests came forward
in the brilliant cassocks of cloth of gold, bearing crosses and holy
images, and as the bishop himself appeared in front of them in his
pontifical mitre, holding a crucifix in his hand, all the Cossacks
bowed their heads and took off their caps. Nobody, no, not even the
king would they have spared at that moment, but they dared not oppose
the dignitaries of the Christian church, so they obeyed the summons of
the clergy. The hetman and the colonels consented to let Potozki go
free, having made him promise upon oath that freedom should be granted
to all the Christian churches, that the old enmity should be brought to
an end, and that no offence should be offered to the Cossack army. One
colonel alone did not give his assent to such a peace as this. Tarass
was that one. He tore a lock of hair from his head and cried aloud:--
"Eh! hetman and colonels! Do not do such a woman's act! Do not give
credence to the Poles. The cursed dogs will betray you!"
But when the army secretary presented the act of treaty, and the
hetman put his sign-manual to it, Tarass took off his rich Turkish
sabre, a fine blade of highly-tempered steel, broke it in two pieces
like a reed, and throwing far away both fragments, one on each side,
exclaimed, "Fare ye well, then! As these two fragments shall never
meet and form one single blade any more, so shall we, comrades, never
meet again in this world! Remember ye my parting words!" and his voice
grew stronger, rose higher, assumed an unknown power, and all felt
perplexed at the prophetic words. "You will remember me at the hour of
your death! You think to have purchased quietness and peace; you think
you may now play the lords. There is another lordship in store for you;
hetman, thou shalt have the skin torn from thy head, thou shalt have
it stuffed with groats, and long shall it be made a show in fairs! And
you, gentlemen, neither will you keep your heads on your shoulders. In
damp dungeons, behind stone walls will you perish, if you are not, like
sheep, boiled alive in cauldrons.[45] And you, children," continued
he, turning round to his Cossacks, "Which of you wishes to die a
natural death--not on stoves and on women's beds, not lying drunk under
a hedge near the brandy-shop like carrion, but to die the honourable
death of Cossacks, all of us on one bed, like bride and bridegroom? Or,
may be you wish to return home to turn heretics and carry about Polish
parsons on your backs?"
"We follow thee, our lord and colonel, we follow thee!" cried all who
were in Tarass's regiment, and many more went over to them.
"If so, then be it so," said Tarass, and he pulled his cap over his
brow, menacingly looked at those he left behind, settled himself in
his saddle, and cried to his followers: "Let nobody offend us with
insulting words. And now, children, let us go and pay our visit to
the Papists!" and he slashed his horse. A train of a hundred waggons
followed him, and numerous were the Cossacks, both on horseback and
on foot, who went after him. Turning back his head, he looked with
threatening and with anger at those who remained behind. None dared to
stop him. In sight of the whole army, his regiment marched away, and
many times did Tarass turn back and menace with his looks.
The hetman and the colonels stood perplexed; all were thoughtful, and
long did they remain silent, oppressed by some gloomy foreboding.
The words of Tarass did not pass away: everything happened as he had
foretold. In a short time the hetman and the chief dignitaries fell
victims to the treachery of the Poles, and their heads were stuck on
pikes.
And what did Tarass in the mean time? Tarass crossed all Poland in
every direction with his regiment, gave to the flames eighteen
boroughs, nearly forty Popish churches, and had even come near Kracow.
Many were the nobles whom he put to the sword; the richest and finest
castles were plundered by him; his Cossacks found out and poured on the
ground wines and meads which had been for centuries preserved in the
cellars of the Polish lords; they chopped to pieces and burnt the rich
stuffs, dresses, and furniture which they found in the storehouses.
"No mercy!" repeated Tarass. And no mercy did the Cossacks show to the
dark-eyebrowed ladies, to the white-bosomed pretty-faced girls, even
at the altar could they find no safety; Tarass burned them with the
altars. Many snow-white hands were seen raised to the sky from out of
the midst of the flames, and many were the shrieks which would have
made the ground tremble and the very grass bend down to the earth in
compassion. But nothing softened the cruelty of the Cossacks, and,
lifting on their spears the infants whom they found in the streets,
they cast them also into the flames. "This is my revenge for Ostap,
cursed Poles!" said Tarass, and he took his revenge in every borough:
so that the Polish government saw at length that the exploits of Tarass
were not merely the acts of a robber, and the same Potozki with five
regiments was intrusted with the task of taking him.