Page:Taras Bulba. A Tale of the Cossacks. 1916.djvu/156

150 is sometimes to be seen in the glances of maidens, nor the tender feeling which takes possession of him who sees such maiden glances.

"Tzaritza!" exclaimed Andríi, filled, heart and soul, with emotion, and with overflowing feelings of every sort, "what do you need? what do you wish? Command me! Impose on me the most impossible task in all the world: I will fly to perform it, even though I perish. I will perish, I will! And I swear by the holy Cross, that death for your sake is so sweet—but no, it is impossible to say how sweet it is! I have three farms; half my father's drove of horses is mine; all that my mother brought my father in dowry, and still conceals even from him,—all this is mine! Not one of the kazáks now possesses such weapons as I do: for the hilt of my sword alone they would give their best drove of horses and three thousand sheep. And all this will I renounce, discard, throw aside,—I will burn it, drown it if you will but say the word, or even move your delicate black brows! But I know that I am probably talking wide of the mark; that all this is not fitting here; that it is not for me, who have passed my life in the seminary and in Zaporozhe, to speak as they are wont who speak among Kings, Princes and all the rest of the noble knights. I perceive that you are a