"What a dad!" thought the elder son Ostap. "The old dog knows
everything, but he always pretends the contrary."

"I don't believe the archimandrite allowed you so much as a smell of
corn-brandy," continued Taras. "Confess, my boys, they thrashed you
well with fresh birch-twigs on your backs and all over your Cossack
bodies; and perhaps, when you grew too sharp, they beat you with
whips. And not on Saturday only, I fancy, but on Wednesday and
Thursday."

"What is past, father, need not be recalled; it is done with."

"Let them try it know," said Andrii. "Let anybody just touch me, let
any Tatar risk it now, and he'll soon learn what a Cossack's sword is
like!"

"Good, my son, by heavens, good! And when it comes to that, I'll go
with you; by heavens, I'll go too! What should I wait here for? To
become a buckwheat-reaper and housekeeper, to look after the sheep and
swine, and loaf around with my wife? Away with such nonsense! I am a
Cossack; I'll have none of it! What's left but war? I'll go with you
to Zaporozhe to carouse; I'll go, by heavens!" And old Bulba, growing
warm by degrees and finally quite angry, rose from the table, and,
assuming a dignified attitude, stamped his foot. "We will go
to-morrow! Wherefore delay? What enemy can we besiege here? What is
this hut to us? What do we want with all these things? What are pots
and pans to us?" So saying, he began to knock over the pots and
flasks, and to throw them about.

The poor old woman, well used to such freaks on the part of her