Page:Phelps - Essays on Russian Novelists.djvu/63



The whole book is dominated by the gigantic figure of old Taras Bulba, who loves food and drink, but who would rather fight than eat. Like so many Russian novels, it begins at the beginning, not at the second or third chapter. The two sons of Taras, wild cubs of the wild old wolf, return from school, and are welcomed by their loving father, not with kisses and affectionate greeting, but with a joyous fist combat, while the anxious mother looks on with tears of dismayed surprise. After the sublime rage of fighting, which proves to the old man's satisfaction that his sons are really worthy of him, comes the sublime joy of brandy, and a prodigious feast, which only the stomachs of fifteenth century Cossacks could survive. Then despite the anguish of the mother--there was no place for the happiness of women in Cossack life--comes the crushing announcement that on the morrow all three males will away to the wars, from which not one of them will return. One of the most poignant scenes that Gogol has written is the picture of the mother, watching the whole night long by her sleeping sons--who pass the few hours after the long separation and before the eternal parting, in deep, unconscious slumber.

The various noisy parliaments and bloody combats are pictured by a pen alive with the subject; of the two sons, one is murdered by his father