Page:Taras Bulba. A Tale of the Cossacks. 1916.djvu/173

Rh "I don't say that he has betrayed anything: I merely said that he had gone over to them."

"You lie, you devil of a Jew! Such a deed was never known in a Christian land. You're getting things mixed up, you dog!"

"May grass grow upon the threshold of my house if I am mixing things! May every one spit upon the grave of my father, my mother, my father's father-in-law, and my mother's father, if I am mixing things! If the noble lord wishes, I can even tell him why he went over to them."

"Why?"

"The Voevod has a beautiful daughter. Holy God! what a beauty!" Here the Jew tried his best to depict beauty in his own person, throwing out his hands, screwing up his eyes, and twisting his mouth to one side, as though testing something by tasting it.

"Well, what of that?"

"He did it, went over to them, for her sake. When a man's in love, then he's just like a bootsole, which, if you soak it, you can bend in any direction, and it will yield."

Bulba pondered deeply. He remembered that the power of weak woman is great—that she had ruined many a strong man, that this was the weak point in Andríi's nature—and he stood long in one place, as though rooted to the spot.