Page:Taras Bulba. A Tale of the Cossacks. 1916.djvu/233

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
TARAS BULBA
227

gan to tremble all over, and suddenly turned pale, like a student who has incautiously teased his comrade to excess, and receiving, in consequence, a blow on the forehead with a ruler, flushes up like fire, springs up in wrath from the bench, to chase his frightened comrade, prepared to tear him in pieces, and suddenly encounters his teacher entering the class-room: in an instant his wrathful impulse calms down, and his futile anger vanishes. In such wise, in one instant, Andríi's wrath was as though it had never existed. And he beheld nothing save only his terrible father, standing before him.

"Well, what are we going to do now?" said Taras, looking him straight in the eye. But Andríi could make no reply to this, and sat there with his eyes rivetted on the ground.

"Well, little son! Did your Lyakhs help you?"

Andríi did not answer.

"You'll be such a traitor, will you? You'll betray your Faith in this fashion? betray your comrades? Hold on, there, dismount from your horse!"

Obedient as a child, he dismounted, and stood before Taras more dead than alive. "Stand still, don't move! I gave you life, I will also kill you!" said Taras, and, retreating a pace, he brought his