Night had but just stole over the heavens, but Bulba always went to
bed early. He lay down on a rug and covered himself with a sheepskin
pelisse, for the night air was quite sharp and he liked to lie warm
when he was at home. He was soon snoring, and the whole household
speedily followed his example. All snored and groaned as they lay in
different corners. The watchman went to sleep the first of all, he had
drunk so much in honour of the young masters' home-coming.

The mother alone did not sleep. She bent over the pillow of her
beloved sons, as they lay side by side; she smoothed with a comb their
carelessly tangled locks, and moistened them with her tears. She gazed
at them with her whole soul, with every sense; she was wholly merged
in the gaze, and yet she could not gaze enough. She had fed them at
her own breast, she had tended them and brought them up; and now to
see them only for an instant! "My sons, my darling sons! what will
become of you! what fate awaits you?" she said, and tears stood in the
wrinkles which disfigured her once beautiful face. In truth, she was
to be pitied, as was every woman of that period. She had lived only
for a moment of love, only during the first ardour of passion, only
during the first flush of youth; and then her grim betrayer had
deserted her for the sword, for his comrades and his carouses. She saw
her husband two or three days in a year, and then, for several years,
heard nothing of him. And when she did see him, when they did live
together, what a life was hers! She endured insult, even blows; she
felt caresses bestowed only in pity; she was a misplaced object in
that community of unmarried warriors, upon which wandering Zaporozhe
cast a colouring of its own. Her pleasureless youth flitted by; her
ripe cheeks and bosom withered away unkissed and became covered with
premature wrinkles. Love, feeling, everything that is tender and
passionate in a woman, was converted in her into maternal love. She