of enterprise which was afterwards further developed among the
Zaporozhians. The hungry student running about the streets of Kief
forced every one to be on his guard. Dealers sitting in the bazaar
covered their pies, their cakes, and their pumpkin-rolls with their
hands, like eagles protecting their young, if they but caught sight of
a passing student. The consul or monitor, who was bound by his duty to
look after the comrades entrusted to his care, had such frightfully
wide pockets to his trousers that he could stow away the whole
contents of the gaping dealer's stall in them. These students
constituted an entirely separate world, for they were not admitted to
the higher circles, composed of Polish and Russian nobles. Even the
Waiwode, Adam Kisel, in spite of the patronage he bestowed upon the
academy, did not seek to introduce them into society, and ordered them
to be kept more strictly in supervision. This command was quite
superfluous, for neither the rector nor the monkish professors spared
rod or whip; and the lictors sometimes, by their orders, lashed their
consuls so severely that the latter rubbed their trousers for weeks
afterwards. This was to many of them a trifle, only a little more
stinging than good vodka with pepper: others at length grew tired of
such constant blisters, and ran away to Zaporozhe if they could find
the road and were not caught on the way. Ostap Bulba, although he
began to study logic, and even theology, with much zeal, did not
escape the merciless rod. Naturally, all this tended to harden his
character, and give him that firmness which distinguishes the
Cossacks. He always held himself aloof from his comrades.

He rarely led others into such hazardous enterprises as robbing a
strange garden or orchard; but, on the other hand, he was always among
the first to join the standard of an adventurous student. And never,
under any circumstances, did he betray his comrades; neither