Taras Bulba | Page 7

of distress by every man having no understanding
whatever of God." Then he goes on to compare the ancient harmony,
perfect down to every detail of dress, to the slightest action, with our
slovenliness and confusion and pettiness, a sad result--considering our
knowledge of past experience, our possession of superior weapons, our
religion given to make us holy and superior beings. And in conclusion
he asks: Is not the "Odyssey" in every sense a deep reproach to our
nineteenth century?
[1] Everyman's Library, No. 726.
An understanding of Gogol's point of view gives the key to "Taras
Bulba." For in this panoramic canvas of the Setch, the military
brotherhood of the Cossacks, living under open skies, picturesquely
and heroically, he has drawn a picture of his romantic ideal, which if
far from perfect at any rate seemed to him preferable to the grey tedium
of a city peopled with government officials. Gogol has written in
"Taras Bulba" his own reproach to the nineteenth century. It is sad and
joyous like one of those Ukrainian songs which have helped to inspire
him to write it. And then, as he cut himself off more and more from the
world of the past, life became a sadder and still sadder thing to him;
modern life, with all its gigantic pettiness, closed in around him, he
began to write of petty officials and of petty scoundrels, "commonplace
heroes" he called them. But nothing is ever lost in this world. Gogol's
romanticism, shut in within himself, finding no outlet, became a flame.
It was a flame of pity. He was like a man walking in hell, pitying. And
that was the miracle, the transfiguration. Out of that flame of pity the

Russian novel was born.
JOHN COURNOS

Evenings on the Farm near the Dikanka, 1829-31; Mirgorod, 1831-33;
Taras Bulba, 1834; Arabesques (includes tales, The Portrait and A
Madman's Diary), 1831-35; The Cloak, 1835; The Revizor (The
Inspector- General), 1836; Dead Souls, 1842; Correspondence with
Friends, 1847; Letters, 1847, 1895, 4 vols. 1902.
ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS: Cossack Tales (The Night of Christmas
Eve, Tarass Boolba), trans. by G. Tolstoy, 1860; St. John's Eve and
Other Stories, trans. by Isabel F. Hapgood, New York, Crowell, 1886;
Taras Bulba: Also St. John's Eve and Other Stories, London, Vizetelly,
1887; Taras Bulba, trans. by B. C. Baskerville, London, Scott, 1907;
The Inspector: a Comedy, Calcutta, 1890; The Inspector-General, trans.
by A. A. Sykes, London, Scott, 1892; Revizor, trans. for the Yale
Dramatic Association by Max S. Mandell, New Haven, Conn., 1908;
Home Life in Russia (adaptation of Dead Souls), London, Hurst, 1854;
Tchitchikoff's Journey's; or Dead Souls, trans. by Isabel F. Hapgood,
New York, Crowell, 1886; Dead Souls, London, Vizetelly, 1887; Dead
Souls, London, Maxwell 1887; Dead Souls, London, Fisher Unwin,
1915; Dead Souls, London, Everyman's Library (Intro. by John
Cournos), 1915; Meditations on the Divine Liturgy, trans. by L.
Alexeieff, London, A. R. Mowbray and Co., 1913.
LIVES, etc.: (Russian) Kotlyarevsky (N. A.), 1903; Shenrok (V. I.),
Materials for a Biography, 1892; (French) Leger (L.), Nicholas Gogol,
1914.

TARAS BULBA



CHAPTER I
"Turn round, my boy! How ridiculous you look! What sort of a priest's

cassock have you got on? Does everybody at the academy dress like
that?"
With such words did old Bulba greet his two sons, who had been absent
for their education at the Royal Seminary of Kief, and had now
returned home to their father.
His sons had but just dismounted from their horses. They were a couple
of stout lads who still looked bashful, as became youths recently
released from the seminary. Their firm healthy faces were covered with
the first down of manhood, down which had, as yet, never known a
razor. They were greatly discomfited by such a reception from their
father, and stood motionless with eyes fixed upon the ground.
"Stand still, stand still! let me have a good look at you," he continued,
turning them around. "How long your gaberdines are! What gaberdines!
There never were such gaberdines in the world before. Just run, one of
you! I want to see whether you will not get entangled in the skirts, and
fall down."
"Don't laugh, don't laugh, father!" said the eldest lad at length.
"How touchy we are! Why shouldn't I laugh?"
"Because, although you are my father, if you laugh, by heavens, I will
strike you!"
"What kind of son are you? what, strike your father!" exclaimed Taras
Bulba, retreating several paces in amazement.
"Yes, even my father. I don't stop to consider persons when an insult is
in question."
"So you want to fight me? with your fist, eh?"
"Any way."
"Well, let it be fisticuffs," said Taras Bulba, turning up his sleeves. "I'll
see what sort of a man you are with your fists."

And