a long journey, he is tired." The child was over twenty, and about six
feet high. "He ought to rest, and eat something; and you set him to
fighting!"

"You are a gabbler!" said Bulba. "Don't listen to your mother, my lad;
she is a woman, and knows nothing. What sort of petting do you need? A
clear field and a good horse, that's the kind of petting for you! And
do you see this sword? that's your mother! All the rest people stuff
your heads with is rubbish; the academy, books, primers, philosophy,
and all that, I spit upon it all!" Here Bulba added a word which is
not used in print. "But I'll tell you what is best: I'll take you to
Zaporozhe[1] this very week. That's where there's science for you!
There's your school; there alone will you gain sense."

[1] The Cossack country beyond (za) the falls (porozhe) of the
Dnieper.

"And are they only to remain home a week?" said the worn old mother
sadly and with tears in her eyes. "The poor boys will have no chance
of looking around, no chance of getting acquainted with the home where
they were born; there will be no chance for me to get a look at them."

"Enough, you've howled quite enough, old woman! A Cossack is not born
to run around after women. You would like to hide them both under your
petticoat, and sit upon them as a hen sits on eggs. Go, go, and let us
have everything there is on the table in a trice. We don't want any
dumplings, honey-cakes, poppy-cakes, or any other such messes: give us
a whole sheep, a goat, mead forty years old, and as much corn-brandy
as possible, not with raisins and all sorts of stuff, but plain
scorching corn-brandy, which foams and hisses like mad."