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Tell me how have you lived, what have you done? What are you looking at? Ah! That's my godson. Ignat Gordyeeff's son, Foma. Do you remember Ignat?" "I remember everything," said Taras. "Oh! That's good, if you are not bragging. Well, are you married?" "I am a widower." "Have you any children?" "They died. I had two." "That's a pity. I would have had grandchildren." "May I smoke?" asked Taras.
Taras glanced at his father with a firm look and asked him drily: "By the way, what makes you think that I was a convict?" The old man glanced at his son with astonishment, which was quickly changed into joy: "Ah! What then? You were not? The devil take them! Then how was it? Don't take offence! How could I know? They said you were in Siberia! Well, and there are the galleys!"
But there will be a grand drinking bout," said Lubov, looking at him askance. "I can drink at my own expense if I choose to do so." "I know," said Lubov, nodding her head expressively. Taras toyed with his teaspoon, turning it between his fingers and looking at them askance. "And where's my godfather?" asked Foma. "He went to the bank. There's a meeting of the board of directors today.
"Seeing what we are" . . . puts in Deacon Taras. "Be quiet, Abyedok," says the teacher good-naturedly. "Why do you provoke him?" He does not love either discussion or noise, and when they quarrel all around him his lips form into a sickly grimace, and he endeavors quietly and reasonably to reconcile each with the other, and if he does not succeed in this he leaves the company.
"Eh, you!" drawled out Foma, with contemptuous pity. "Can your father, can the merchant class beget anything good? Can you expect a radish to bring forth raspberries? And you lied to me. Taras is this, Taras is that. What is in him? A merchant, like the other merchants, and his paunch is also that of the real merchant. He-he!"
In its particular class of fiction, "Taras Bulba" has no equal except the Polish trilogy of Sienkiewicz; and Gogol produces the same effect in a small fraction of the space required by the other. This is of course Romanticism rampant, which is one reason why it has not been highly appreciated by the French critics.
But the first man they encountered was a Zaporozhetz who was sleeping in the very middle of the road with legs and arms outstretched. Taras Bulba could not refrain from halting to admire him. "How splendidly developed he is; phew, what a magnificent figure!" he said, stopping his horse. It was, in fact, a striking picture.
"He said First he beckoned me with his finger, and then he said, 'Yankel! Lord Andrii said, 'Yankel, tell my father, tell my brother, tell all the Cossacks, all the Zaporozhtzi, everybody, that my father is no longer my father, nor my brother my brother, nor my comrades my comrades; and that I will fight them all, all." "You lie, imp of a Jew!" shouted Taras, beside himself. "You lie, dog!
"Well, much as I have travelled, I have never met such a gentleman before. Instead of punching your head, he actually gives up his place to you," said the old man to Taras. "It seems there are all sorts of gentlefolk, too."
His family name was Kiselnikoff, but they called him Paltara Taras, because he was a head and shoulders taller than his friend, Deacon Taras, who had been degraded from his office for drunkenness and immorality. The Deacon was a short, thick-set person, with the chest of an athlete and a round, strong head. He danced skilfully, and was still more skilful at swearing.
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